THAT  HOUSE 
I    BOUGHT 


HENRY  EDWARD  WARNER 


Liu, 
WALT 


807.73 

W2UIit        Warner,    H.    E. 


AUTHOR 


That   house   I 


TITLE 


7002J/ 


bought 


BORROWER'S   NAME 


807.13   Warner,  H.  E. 

W2ijlj_t  That  house   I  bought 

7002^ 


UBP 
WAL1 


That  House  I  Bought 

A  LITTLE  LEAF  FROM  LIFE 


BY 

HENRY  EDWARD  WARNER 


G.  W.  DILLINGHAM   COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK. 


COPYRIGHT,  1911,  BY 
G.  W.  DILLINGHAM  COMPANY 


That  House  I  Bought 


DEDICATION 

Why  a  dedication  ?  Why  a  preface 
— a  foreword?  Why  any  comment, 
save  the  title  and  the  price  mark? 

Simplicity  itself!  The  preface, 
foreword,  dedication — what  you  may 
term  it — gives  opportunity  to  apol- 
ogize for  the  liberality  with  which  the 
author  betrays  his  egotism,  in  the 
thickly  sprinkled  perpendicular  pro- 
noun. 

And  yet  this  plain  young  tale  of 
plain  things  could  not  be  told  in  the 
third  person,  since  it  is  a  mere  setting 
down  of  real  experience,  painfully 

3 


DEDICATION 

truthful  and  laboriously  pruned 
where  imagination  was  tempted  to 
stray  into  fields  of  fiction.  There  is 
but  one  confession  of  romantic  men- 
dacity— and  it  shall  not  be  made,  for 
it  might  have  happened!  Quien 
Sabe? 

And  now  this  little  story  is  dedi- 
cated to  all  who  have  bought  or  in- 
tend to  buy  homes,  who  have  lost  or 
expect  to  lose  them;  to  the  bird  of 
passage  and  to  the  homing,  and  to 
all  who  love  their  fellowmen — but 
very  especially  to  you  who  read  it. 

H.  E.  W. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

DEDICATION 5 

FIRST  PERIOD 7 

SECOND  PERIOD 18 

THIRD  PERIOD 31 

FOURTH  PERIOD 42 

FIFTH  PERIOD 54 

SIXTH  PERIOD 68 

SEVENTH  PERIOD 90 

EIGHTH  PERIOD 105 

NINTH  PERIOD 120 

TENTH  PERIOD 132 

ELEVENTH  PERIOD 143 

THE  EVEN  DOZENTH 155 


That  House  I  Bought 

FIRST  PERIOD 

THIRTY-THREE  years  ago  I 
formed  a  box  of  blocks  into 
a  castle  and  then  kicked  it 
down  in  disgust  because  I  didn't  like 
the  chimney.  Mother  said  I  displayed 
temper. 

Birds  build  nests  in  tree-tops  with 
horse-hair  and  straw,  and  odd  bits 
of  stuff;  but  my  wife  and  I  aren't 
birds.  Far  from  it.  And  we've  been 
going  along  for  fifteen  years  without 
a  regular  nest.  All  that  time  I've 
7 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

been  building  a  house  with  blocks  and 
kicking  it  down. 

The  other  day  we  went  out  to  Mont 
Alto  to  take  dinner  with  our  friends, 
and  on  the  way  we  saw  a  new  house 
numbered  "3313."  The  number 
stuck  out  in  letters  of  silver,  bur- 
nished into  brilliancy  by  a  noonday 
sun. 

"That's  an  odd  number,"  I  re- 
marked. "Anyway  you  look  at  it,  it's 
unlucky — 3313.  And  I'm  not  super- 
stitious." 

"Let's  go  in  and  examine  it,"  she 
said. 

That's  where  it  all  started.  We 
bought  the  house  after  dinner.  It 
took  fifteen  minutes  to  decide,  and  in 
8 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

that  time,  of  course,  we  didn't  no- 
tice the  place  on  the  dining-room 
ceiling  where  the  plumbing — but  let 
it  pass.  The  Duke  of  Mont  Alto 
would  fix  it  up.  We  had  great  faith 
'in  the  Duke.  The  point  is,  we  owned 
a  house  at  last.  That  is,  we  had 
started  to  own  it.  We  were  tickled 
to  death — also  scared  to  death.  There 
are  two  emotions  for  you,  both  fatal ! 
Coming  into  possession  of  a  castle 
with  ten  rooms  and  large  open 
plumbing,  fronting  fifty  feet  and  go- 
ing back  one  hundred  and  fifty- three 
feet  to  the  company's  stable,  is  a 
thrilling  experience.  My  first  thrill 
was  in  connection  with  the  initial 
terms  of  the  contract,  which  called 

9 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

for  certain  financial  daring.  Up  to 
this  time  I  had  laid  to  my  soul  the 
happy  thought  that  a  clean  con- 
science is  more  than  money;  but  be- 
lieve me,  friend,  a  silver  quarter  be- 
gan to  look  like  a  gold  eagle.  Change 
that  in  other  days  went  merrily  across 
the  table  without  thought  for  the 
morrow,  I  found  myself  wearing  to 
a  frazzle,  counting  the  cracks  in  the 
milled  edges  affectionately,  hopefully, 
and  yet  with  certain  misgivings. 

Naturally,  we  first  paced  off  our 
yard,  to  see  whether  it  was  50  by  153 
feet,  more  or  less,  as  shown  in  the 
plot.  Every  man  who  buys  a  house 
paces  off  his  yard.  So  does  his  wife. 
10 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

My  wife  made  seventy-eight  steps  of 
it  and  I  made  fifty-one,  on  the  length. 
By  deducting  for  my  long  legs  and 
adding  for  her  confining  skirt  we 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  mathema- 
tics was  an  inexact  science,  and  decid- 
ed to  do  it  later  with  a  tape  measure. 
But  for  the  purpose  of  this  narra- 
tive we  must  get  inside  the  house  and 
look  about.  We  found  a  wide  hall 
with  a  grand  staircase ;  a  roomy  par- 
lor connecting  by  folding  door  with 
a  spacious  dining-room,  and  off  the 
dining-room  a  real  conservatory,  all 
glass  and  tiles.  Opening  into  the  pan- 
try a  swinging  door,  and  another  into 
the  kitchen,  and  in  the  wall  a  re- 
frigerator. In  the  basement  a  fur- 
II 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

nace  with  a  barometer  and  thermome- 
ter atop.  On  the  second  floor  four 
big  rooms  and  a  centre  hallway,  and 
in  the  bathroom  large,  open  plumb- 
ing and  the  addition  of  a  shower  and 
spray  bath.  On  the  third  floor  two 
cozy  rooms  and  another  hallway  and 
bath.  Item :  Slate  roof ;  item :  water- 
heated,  hot  and  cold  water  all  the 
time  sometimes ;  item :  hardwood  floor 
downstairs.  Conveniences  in  every 
direction,  gas  and  electric  fittings 
throughout.  And  the  whole  sheltered 
by  oak  trees  that  leaned  over  to  em- 
brace us,  wagging  flirtatious  branches 
through  the  big  windows. 

"Isn't  this  living!"  I  exclaimed. 

My  wife  looked  out  through  the 
12 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

window  at  the  distant  picture  of  the 
low-lying  city  against  the  bay,  and 
held  my  hand.  It  was  as  though  we 
had  not  been  married  fifteen  years, 
but  were  beginning  our  honeymoon — 
a  couple  of  birds  just  mated,  fetching 
things  for  the  nest  and  glorying  in  its 
construction — silent  in  a  dream  of 
contemplation,  but  just  ready  to  burst 
into  song,  the  song  of  achievement. 
She  did  not  reply,  but  pressed  my 
hand.  When  finally  she  spoke,  what 
was  in  her  heart  broke  its  leash. 

"I  was  just  wondering/'  she  said, 
"if  we  couldn't  rent  the  second  floor 
as  a  flat  to  pay  the  expenses,  and  then 
all  we  put  in  would  be  invested  in  the 
equity !" 

13 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

I  awoke  with  a  start  from  my 
dreaming.  Even  a  honeymoon  has  its 
practical  side ! 

But  all  sad  realities  have  their  rec- 
ompense in  a  happy  mind.  Give  me 
the  optimist  and  a  famine  and  I'll 
show  you  a  famine  licked  to  a  stand- 
still. The  combination  of  confident, 
hopeful  ego  and  material  misfortune 
never  yet  met,  but  that  material  mis- 
fortune took  the  count  in  the  first 
round.  The  man  who  stands  hug- 
ging misfortune  in  his  chest  has 
something  coming  to  him.  When  it 
arrives  it  will  land  right  square  under 
that  point  where,  if  he  were  a  woman 
of  twenty  years  ago,  he  might  have 
worn  earrings.  Take  the  other  chap, 

14 


THAI   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

however — the  fellow  who  not  only 
shakes  hands  with  Trouble,  but  slaps 
it  on  the  back,  invites  it  to  have  a 
drink,  sleeps  with  it,  jollies  it  until  it 
wrinkles  up  into  a  gorgeous  grin  six 
miles  long;  take  that  chap  and  put 
him  in  the  middle  of  the  Sahara  Des- 
ert with  nothing  but  a  glad  smile  in 
his  pocket,  and  he'll  find  a  way  to 
coax  a  mint  julep  out  of  the  blooming 
sand! 

Do  you  know,  the  more  I  think 
about  the  fellow  who  starts  out  by 
howling  that  things  can't  be  done,  the 
more  I'm  convinced  that  the  Creator 
got  a  lot  of  cracked  forms  into  the 
outfit  when  Man  was  molded,  and 
these  little  defects  must  really  be 

15 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

charged  up  to  accident.  The  Lord 
never  intended  any  man  made  in  His 
image  to  be  afraid  of  anything  that 
walks  on  hind  legs  or  all  fours, 
crawls  or  flies,  or  flops  dismally  over 
the  Slough  of  Despond  on  a  carrion- 
hunt.  And  just  about  the  best  way 
to  mend  this  defect,  I  reckon,  is  to 
get  married  early  and  start  right  out 
buying  a  house  and  lot.  If  a  fellow's 
an  invertebrate  he'll  get  past  the  first 
payment  with  a  struggle.  If  he  sur- 
vives the  second,  it  will  put  some 
starch  into  his  hide. 

You  are  asking  what  all  this  has  to 
do  with  That  House  I  Bought. 

Why,  bless  your  heart,  Friend,  it 
has  all  to  do  with  it !  The  very  first 
16 


THAT   HOUSE   I   BOUGHT 

thing  a  man  must  do  when  he  buys 
a  house  and  lot  is,  get  himself  into 
the  state  of  mind.  Buying  a  house 
and  lot  is  not  so  much  a  physical  or 
financial  transaction  as  a  philosophi- 
cal conclusion.  You  need  the  house 
and  lot ;  you  must  argue  yourself  into 
a  mental  attitude  toward  that  house 
and  lot  that  simply  knocks  the  props 
from  under  every  obstacle.  The 
man  who  is  afraid  to  own  his  castle 
is  a  good  citizen,  perhaps,  in  every 
other  respect.  But  the  very  best  citi- 
zen is  he  who  has  the  courage  to  own 
something  and  pay  taxes  on  it,  help 
support  the  community,  and  be  useful 
to  himself  and  to  the  world  that  holds 
him  trustee  of  his  possessions. 

17 


SECOND  PERIOD 

Heaven  bless  Murphy ! 

When  my  wife  was  a  little  girl 
with  braids  down  her  back,  Murphy 
used  to  see  her  in  the  excited  crowd 
in  front  of  the  neighbor's  door,  as  he 
toted  a  grand  piano  to  the  waiting 
van.  Many  a  time  Murphy  has  start- 
ed to  give  that  little  girl  a  penny  be- 
cause she  was  so  cute.  Many  a  time 
he  has  reconsidered  and  kept  the 
penny  himself ! 

It  was  Murphy  who  moved  us.  He 
is  anywhere  from  seventy  to  ninety 
years  old  now — a  stalwart,  steel-mus- 
18 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

cled  young  fellow  who  runs  his  own 
wagon  and  lifts  his  end  of  the  heavi- 
est burden  with  a  heart  as  light  as 
his  chest  is  deep  and  his  back  broad. 
His  beard  is  long  and  white. 

How  we  tore  up  our  old  rooms  and 
saw  our  furniture  hustled  out,  how 
we  looked  regretfully  back  at  the  den 
we  had  papered  and  fixtured  our- 
selves, with  its  rich  red  base  and 
green  forest  over  that,  and  the  light 
sky — that  is  all  another  story.  It  is 
another  story,  too,  how  mother-in-law 
bustled  here  and  there  helpfully  and 
every  now  and  then  added  something 
of  her  own  to  our  belongings,  and 
how  Mamie  telephoned  every  one  she 
knew  that  we  were  moving  to  That 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

House  I  Bought!  These  are  things 
we  think  of,  but  do  not  write. 

Murphy  was  indefatigable.  We 
thought  we  had  a  load  more  than 
Murphy  made  it,  what  with  shifting 
this  and  changing  that,  and  substitut- 
ing something  and  stuffing  small 
truck  under  tables  and  empty  boxes 
that  we  wanted  for  our  conservatory. 
My  wife  watched  him  in  admira- 
tion. 

"Mr.  Murphy,"  she  said,  "you 
would  be  invaluable  to  the  United 
Railways  as  a  conductor  on  the  Druid 
Hill  avenue  line!" 

When  the  last  load  was  about  to 
leave  my  wife  rushed  to  the  door. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Murphy,  couldn't  you 
20 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

take  that  couch  upstairs  and  drop  it 
off  at " 

Murphy  smiled  and  glanced  at  the 
wagon,  with  things  tied  on  over  the 
wheels,  and  the  china  closet  swinging 
perilously  far  out  on  the  tail  piece. 

"I  can  do  it,"  he  said,  "if  I  carry 
the  china  closet  on  my  lap." 

Murphy  intended  that  as  a  jest. 

My  wife  hadn't  thought  of  the  pos- 
sibilities of  Murphy's  lap.  The  in- 
stant he  mentioned  it,  she  darted 
back  into  the  house,  quickly  to  reap- 
pear with  a  double  armful  of  odds 
and  ends  that  she  couldn't  get  into 
the  suit  cases  and  trunks. 

"It's  mighty  kind  of  you,"  she  said, 
with  the  sort  of  a  smile  that  nailed 

21 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

me  fifteen  years  ago.  "If  you  can 
just  carry  these  little  things  in  your 
lap " 

Murphy  is  a  game  one. 

When  he  drove  away  Murphy's  lap 
looked  like  the  market  burden  of  a 
suburbanite.  And  because  he  was  so 
cheerful  about  it,  and  so  willing  to  do 
so  much  for  so  little,  and  because 
he  is  such  a  good  citizen,  again  I 
say: 

"Heaven  bless  Murphy !" 

After  Murphy  had  moved  us  in  our 
real  troubles  began.  I  should  have 
said  our  real  joys,  for,  believe  me,  the 
infant  troubles  of  owning  your  castle 
are  so  refined  and  glorified  by  the 
pride  of  possession  that  they  appear 

22 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

only  as  strengthening  alloy  in  the 
pure  gold  of  content. 

It  was  on  Thursday  and  Friday 
that  Murphy  moved  us.  On  Satur- 
day I  went  to  the  house,  and  the  lady 
who  will  hereafter  listen  for  the  tin- 
kle of  the  door  and  telephone  bells 
met  me,  brimming  over  with  cheer- 
fulness and  almost  as  proud  of  her- 
self as  I  was  of  the  lord  of  the  man- 
or who  strutted  like  a  peacock,  as  for 
the  first  time  he  showed  his  feathers 
in  his  own  front  yard. 

Never  praise  your  wife  too  much, 
or  she  will  dominate  you. 

But  as  this  is  to  be  a  truthful 
chronicle,  be  it  said  that  my  wife  is 
the  most  wonderful  woman  in  the 

23 


THAT   HOUSE   I   BOUGHT 

world.  How  on  earth  she  ever  got 
the  chairs  and  tables,  the  china  closet 
and  dishes,  the  cooking  hardware  and 
beds  and  mattresses  and  my  desk  and 
revolving  bookcase,  and  Heaven 
knows  what,  all  in  place  in  one  day 
is  beyond  me. 

There  were  pictures  on  the  walls — 
old  friends  in  new  places,  looking 
down  to  greet  me.  A  foolish  Billiken 
laughed  out  loud  as  I  held  up  my 
hands  in  amazement. 

"Step  high  and  easy,"  said  my 
wife.  "You'll  scratch  the  hardwood 
floor,"  and  she  rubbed  my  heelprint 
from  the  polish  with  the  hem  of  her 
working  skirt.  Then  we  started 
around  testing  the  push-buttons.  We 
24 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

pushed  every  button  there  was,  and 
pulled  down  the  curtains  to  try  the 
effect  in  the  parlor  and  dining-room. 
She  hauled  me  around  and  showed 
me  the  marvelous  gas  range  that  she 
was  going  to  do  wonders  with.  That 
refrigerator,  that  was  yet  to  have  its 
first  load  of  ice  and  provisions — it 
made  me  hungry  just  to  look  at  it! 
We  went  upstairs  and  downstairs.  I 
opened  and  closed  every  window  and 
made  wise-foolish  observations  on  the 
proper  care  of  a  home. 

A  man  can  be  a  fearful  idiot  when 
his  chest  is  out. 

I  chucked  my  coat  and  cuffs  and 
collar  and  went  to  work  on  little  odds 
and  ends  of  chores  about  the  place. 

25 


THAI   ROUSE  I  BOUGHT 

Hasn't  a  fellow  a  right  to  whistle 
and  sing  when  he  comes  home  from 
foraging  and  finds  the  lady  bird 
dancing  around  the  new  nest? 

There  was  a  thermometer  on  top  of 
the  furnace  in  the  basement,  and  be- 
side it  a  round  thing  to  tell  how  much 
water  we  were  catapulting  into  the 
radiators.  When  there  is  too  much 
water  it  overflows  from  a  tank  up- 
stairs; when  there  isn't  enough  you 
turn  some  in  downstairs.  So  I  start- 
ed a  march  up  and  down  stairs,  first 
turning  some  on  and  then  scooting 
skyward  to  listen  to  the  overflow,  and 
after  making  this  trip  about  ten  times 
I  had  an  appetite  like  a  typhoid  con- 
valescent. 

26 


TEAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

O  the  tintinnabulation  of  the  bells ! 

There  are  church  bells  and  wed- 
ding bells,  bells  that  cry  the  joy  of  a 
new  birth  or  toll  the  sorrow  of  the 
huddled  family,  bells  that  ring  victory 
in  war  and  bells  that  scream  the  hil- 
arity of  la  fiesta!  But  for  the  bell 
that  speaks  the  common  language  of 
all  men,  I  name  the  dinner  bell !  The 
first  biscuits  were  piping  hot  on  the 
plate. 

"Are  they  as  good  as  your  mother 
used  to  make?"  asked  my  wife. 

"My  mother/'  I  said,  "was  a  piker 
at  biscuit  making!" 

And  she  beamed  with  pleasure 
when  I  slandered  my  honored  mother ! 

After  the  dinner  we  went  out  on 
27 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

the  porch — the  big,  wide  porch  for 
which  we  had  planned  a  swing  on 
chains,  and  sat  rocking  and  digesting, 
digesting  and  rocking,  in  a  perfect 
picture  of  resident  domesticity.  In 
the  house  across  the  street  there 
were  lights.  The  people  had  just 
moved  in — that  is,  they  had  moved  in 
several  days  before  and  were  just  be- 
ginning to  find  the  trouble  with 
things  and  why  the  gas  company 
could  afford  to  pay  considerable  divi- 
dends on  wind.  I  say,  we  were  sit- 
ting there  as  cumfy  as  possible,  when 
my  wife  caught  my  hand  in  a  convul- 
sive grip. 

With  the  other  hand  she  pointed 
across  the  street  to  the  second  parlor 
28 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

blind.  I  followed  her,  and  felt  like  a 
Peeping  Tom.  There  on  the  blind 
was  a  great  picture  in  silhouette — a 
picture  of  two  figures  standing,  and 
the  tall,  masculine  figure  was  holding 
both  shoulders  of  the  other  and  look- 
ing square  into  her  eyes. 

"It's  the  daughter !"  my  wife  almost 
whispered.  "I  know  her  by  her  hair 
ribbon ;  it's  too  young  for  the  mother ! 
Look,  look,  they  are  going  to  ki " 

She  finished  the  word  with  a  lit- 
tle gurgle,  for  they  had  done  it !  Not 
only  that,  but  the  kiss  was  followed 
by  an  embrace,  and  another,  and  then 
the  lights  went  out. 

A  confounded  belt  had  slipped  at 
the  powerhouse,  I  learned  afterward. 
29 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

I  think  corporations  should  be 
heavily  penalized  for  such  breaks  in 
the  service.  There  should  be  some 
sort  of  appliance  to  keep  belts  from 
slipping.  More  than  once  the  belt  has 
slipped  and  left  that  whole  residence 
district  in  darkness. 


THIRD  PERIOD 

I  had  always  regarded  the  humor- 
ous paragraphs  about  the  price  of 
coal  as  mere  pleasantries.  I  now 
deny  that  they  are  pleasantries,  and 
they  are  far  from  "mere." 

There  are  several  grades  of  coal. 
Our  furnace  takes  No.  3,  and  it's 
$6.60  a  ton,  April  price.  The  man 
who  dominates  the  situation  told  me 
by  way  of  consolation  that  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  the  big  strike  coal  would  be 
50  cents  a  ton  cheaper.  I  can't  see 
how  that  sort  of  consolation  helps  a 
fellow. 

Our   house   burns   about    ten   or 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

twelve  tons,  normal  conditions.  We 
figured  that  about  eight  tons  now 
would  be  the  proper  caper,  and  we 
could  pay  the  difference  next  winter 
if  driven  to  it.  From  the  way  the 
furnace  ate  coal  to  take  the  chill  off 
the  house  the  first  day,  I  could  see 
the  Board  of  Charities  asking  me  my 
name,  address,  age,  social  condition 
and  whether  my  parents  ever  went  to 
jail. 

Now    $6.60    times    eight    tons    is 

$52.80,  and  that's  more  than  taxes, 

water  rent  and  interest  on  a  house 

and  lot.    So  when  the  man  backed  up 

;with  a  cartload  and  began  to  throw  it 

in   off-handedly,   I   was   pained.     A 

coal-heaver  should  treat  $52.80  with 

32 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

more  respect.  I  have  seen  men  throw 
high-grade  ore  out  of  the  Indepen- 
dence mine  with  the  same  callous  in- 
difference, without  myself  being 
shocked;  but  here  was  a  new  situa- 
tion. It  was  my  $52.80  he  was 
throwing  around  like  dirt,  and  I 
spoke  to  him  about  it. 

"How,"  I  said,  "can  you  have  the 
heart  to  dump  $52.80  into  my  cellar 
without  ceremony?  You  should  at 
least  remove  your  hat." 

Do  you  know,  I  don't  believe  he 
appreciated  the  situation. 

William  made  the  first  fire.  I  in- 
structed him  to  lay  on  the  coal  as 
scarcely  as  possible,  and  to  go  slow 
with  the  draughts.  So  he  threw  on 

33 


THAT   HOUSE  1  BOUGHT 

six  shovelsful  of  my  $52.80,  opened 
everything  and  ran  it  up  to  204  de- 
grees F.  Any  man  who  sat  ten  min- 
utes in  our  house  and  then  dared  to 
expose  himself  in  a  Turkish  steam 
room  would  freeze  to  death  in  ten  sec- 
onds. 

We  had  a  fire  in  the  furnace  two 
or  three  days.  I  got  interested  in  (a) 
a  newly  patented  ash  sifter  (b)  and 
a  process  for  mixing  ashes  with  some 
chemical  solution  that  would  restore 
a  ton  of  coal  for  twenty-five  cents. 
If  you  have  never  sifted  ashes,  you've 
missed  something.  You  take  a  cou- 
ple of  shovelsful  of  ashes  and  dump 
them  in  the  sifter.  Then  you  pick  up 
the  sifter  and  agitate  it.  If  I  were 

34 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

employing  an  ash  sifter,  I  should  get 
one  addicted  to  chills  and  ague,  or  St. 
Vitus'  dance,  or  something.  Then  I 
could  be  sure  he  wasn't  loafing  on  the 
job !  Well,  after  you've  shivered  the 
sifter,  busted  a  suspender  button, 
twisted  your  backbone  into  a  pretzel, 
filled  your  eyes,  ears,  nose,  and  lungs 
with  dust  and  cussed  your  patron 
saint,  you've  got  the  net  result :  One 
piece  of  half-burned  coal,  six  clinkers, 
and  the  top  of  a  tin  can. 

That  chemical  process  to  make  coal 
out  of  ashes  for  a  quarter  a  ton  is  a 
good  thing — for  the  inventor.  With 
childlike  confidence  I  bought  a  bottle 
of  it.  After  ruining  a  barrel  of  per- 
fectly good  ashes  and  backsliding 
35 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

from  the  church  of  Martin  Luther  I 
gave  it  up.  Hereafter  we  will  burn 
our  coal  as  long  as  it  will  burn,  and 
the  ashes  may  go  hang !  I  could  have 
earned  $50  at  my  profession  in  the 
time  I  was  trying  to  beat  an  honest 
coal  dealer  out  of  $6.60. 

Well,  when  we  finally  got  the  fur- 
nace working  I  hopped  into  the  show- 
er bath. 

May  good  fortune  attend  the  man 
who  thought  of  putting  a  shower  bath 
in  That  House  I  Bought !  The  water 
comes  from  overhead  for  one  thing, 
and  shoots  into  the  delighted  legs  of 
the  languorous  for  another,  from  the 
sides.  It  invigorates,  cleanses,  and 
tickles. 

36 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

Ballington  Booth  says  man  is  re- 
generated by  soup,  soap,  and  salva- 
tion. But  I  would  say,  at  first  blush, 
that  no  man  can  get  the  full  effect 
of  regeneration  on  anything  short  of 
a  shower  bath  in  his  house. 

I  began  by  reducing  my  costume  to 
a  pleasant  frame  of  mind  and  doing 
a  few  acrobatic  stunts,  deep  breath- 
ing, setting-up  exercises,  and  various 
liver-limberings.  A  free  and  easy 
perspiration  set  in.  That,  say  all  the 
doctors,  is  good  for  the  system.  Then 
I  stepped  blithely  into  the  shower, 
drew  the  rubber  curtain  close  and, 
commending  my  soul  to  all  the  gods 
I  could  call  to  mind,  took  a  long 
breath  and  turned  her  on. 

37 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

At  first  the  water  was  icy  cold,  but 
as  soon  as  that  in  the  pipes  had  run 
out  I  was  violently  assaulted  by  a 
steaming  deluge  straight  from  the 
bowels  of  Hades.  Calmly  removing 
the  first  layer  of  skin  as  it  was  boiled 
off,  I  reached  for  the  spigot  and 
turned  as  per  directions,  to  the  right. 
Instantly  some  one  threw  an  iceberg 
into  the  tank  and  at  the  first  shower 
of  Chilkootian  damp  I  was  converted 
into  an  icicle. 

Boiled  to  a  color  that  would  excite 
the  envy  of  an  ambitious  lobster,  on 
one  side,  and  frozen  to  a  consistency 
that  would  inspire  a  Harlequin  block 
on  the  other,  my  emotions  ran  cor- 
respondingly hot  and  cold  to  a  delir- 

38 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

ium  of  despair,  as  I  found  that  no 
matter  how  I  turned  I  got  either  hot 
or  cold,  and  never  a  happy  medium. 
My  wife,  who  was  downstairs  with 
the  kitchen  door  shut,  said  she  could 
hear  my  remarks  distinctly,  and  add- 
ed that  she  would  have  forever  hung 
her  head  in  shame  had  company  been 
calling  at  the  time. 

Women  are  too  sensitive. 

It  didn't  occur  to  me,  until  I  had 
been  cooked  and  uncooked  a  dozen 
times  that  this  thing  might  be  done 
from  the  outside  just  as  well.  I 
stepped  out  and  manipulated  with  a 
broom  handle,  poking  it  behind  the 
curtain  and  jabbing,  pushing,  and 
pulling,  hauling,  twisting  at  those  in- 

39 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

f  ernal  mechanical  devices  with  an  en- 
ergy born  of  insanity.  Finally,  by 
some  accident  or  other,  I  got  the 
water  just  right  and  stepped  in 
again. 

It  was  delicious.  Never  was  there 
such  a  grateful  sense  of  appreciation 
as  that  I  felt  as  I  recovered  my  tem- 
per and  went  back  to  my  beneficent 
gods.  The  water  was  not  too  cold, 
not  too  hot. 

Then  it  stopped  altogether. 

I  looked  up  and  around,  tried  all 
the  valves,  hammered  on  the  wall, 
and  then  yelled  to  my  wife : 

"What's  the  matter  with  the 
water?" 

She  replied  cheerily : 
40 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

"The  man  has  come  to  fix  the  pipes 
in  the  furnace,  and  it's  turned  off!" 

With  good  things  it  were  always 
thus.  The  minute  a  man  really  begins 
to  enjoy  life  it's  time  to  die.  There 
is  always  a  fly  in  the  custard. 


FOURTH  PERIOD 

Our  porch  is  one  of  those  accom- 
modating porches  with  plenty  of 
room,  a  standing  invitation  to  com- 
pany. Whenever  company  comes  I 
have  to  convert  myself  into  a  mov- 
ing van  and  tote  all  the  furniture  out 
from  the  parlor. 

The  Duke  of  Mont  Alto,  and  the 
Duchess,  dropped  in  one  evening  with 
the  Purdys,  and  I  began  to  move  the 
parlor.  What  with  spade  pushing 
and  furniture  moving,  I've  got  San- 
dow  backed  off  the  board.  It's  won- 
derful what  a  little  regular  training 
will  do  for  a  fellow !  But  what  gets 
42 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

me  is,  how  on  earth  did  Murphy  ever 
maneuver  the  big  chair  with  the 
green  upholstery  into  the  house  at 
all?  It  is  exactly  half  an  inch  wider 
in  every  dimension  than  our  door — 
but  as  Murphy  got  it  in  it  was  up  to 
me  to  get  it  out.  I  was  pushing  and 
shoving  and  twisting,  trying  it  side- 
ways and  upside  down,  straight  ahead 
and  backing  like  a  mule,  stealing  a 
fraction  of  space  by  half-closing  the 
screen  door,  when  my  wife  took  hold 
of  a  leg  to  help  me.  That  settled  it. 
We  stuck,  in  such  a  position  that  I 
could  neither  get  myself  out  nor  the 
chair  in  again. 

The  Duke  and  the  Duchess  and  the 
Purdys  all  volunteered  to  assist  by 
43 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

suggesting  various  things  that  they 
thought  I  hadn't  thought  of  thinking 
of.  I  kept  my  temper  and  formed  my 
mouth  into  a  counterfeit  smile,  to 
show  how  polite  a  Southern  gentle- 
man could  be  in  trying  circumstances. 
Then  I  gave  one  mighty  heave,  de- 
termined to  push  the  chair  through 
or  the  jam  down,  and  stuck  worse 
than  ever. 

"Can't  you  get  through?"  asked 
my  wife  sympathetically. 

"Certainly  I  can  get  through,"  I 
replied ;  "I'm  just  doing  this  to  make 
it  look  difficult!" 

The  Purdys  laughed  at  that,  and 
the  Duke  said  I  was  a  comical  cuss. 
You  see,  he  had  an  idea  I  was  trying 
44 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

to  amuse  the  company.  That  made 
me  so  mad  that  I  dropped  the  chair  to 
spit  on  my  hands,  and  when  I  dropped 
the  chair  the  stubborn  thing  fell  right 
through  the  door  of  its  own  accord, 
and  I  straightened  up  like  a  General, 
and  remarked: 

"Now  I  suppose  you'll  make  a  pool 
among  you  and  gobble  all  the  credit 
for  that!" 

And  hanged  if  they  didn't! 

To  amble  back  to  our  muttons,  it 
was  a  nice,  quiet  little  visit. 

During  the  evening  my  wife  got 
out  some  grape-fruit,  and  in  the  stilly 
night,  the  stars  twinkling  overhead 
and  the  grass  growing  silently,  hard- 
ly disturbing  us  at  all,  it  was  exceed- 

45 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

ingly  pleasant  to  hear  the  spoons  go 
slippety-slosh  into  the  evasive  juices 
that  reluctantly  gave  up  about  half 
what  the  labor  was  worth. 

But  what  I  started  to  write  about 
was  the  house  party  across  the  street. 
When  you're  sitting  on  the  porch  of 
your  own  house  doing  nothing  but 
listening  to  the  ebb  and  flow  of  grape- 
fruit juice,  you  can't  help  noticing  the 
strings  of  Japanese  lanterns  over  yon- 
der, and  listening  to  the  gay  laughter 
of  young  people  as  they  madly  hurl 
bean-bags  into  a  hole  in  a  plank, 
shrieking  the  while  and  guying  each 
other  apace.  O,  Postoffice!  O,  clap- 
in-an-clap-out !  O,  Puss-in-the-cor- 
ner!  O,  Youth! 

46 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

The  Duke  was  saying  something 
about  the  time  when  suburban  streets 
would  be  two  hundred  feet  wide  to 
make  landing  places  for  aeroplanes, 
and  when  the  human  appetite  would 
be  regulated  by  push-buttons  ranged 
along  the  diaphragm.  But  I  didn't 
hear  a  word. 

I  yearned  to  be  across  the  street. 
That  was  uncomplimentary  to  com- 
pany, but  nevertheless  I  yearned.  So 
did  all  the  rest,  only  they  aren't  tell- 
ing about  it.  When  a  man  has  passed 
into  the  sere  and  yellow  he  has  a  right 
to  the  consolation  of  retrospect. 
Frankly,  for  a  moment  I  wished  I 
didn't  have  any  house.  I  wanted  to 
be  over  there  where  the  young  folks 
47 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

were,  pitching  bean-bags.  And  later, 
when  they  gathered  around  the  piano 
and  sang  discordantly  all  the  popular 
songs,  I  wanted  to  be  there  and  join 
my  voice  in  the  music.  It  was  awful 
music,  but  I  wanted  to  howl  right 
along  with  the  young  ones. 

When  the  company  had  gone  I 
wrestled  the  green  chair  back  into  the 
house  by  way  of  the  widest  window, 
but  my  mind  was  still  full  of  the 
thought  that  had  seized  me — of  the 
youth,  and  gaiety,  and  glory  of  green 
years.  As  I  went  to  close  the  shut- 
ters, the  last  of  the  young  people  had 
just  gone  up  the  street  singing.  I 
gave  one  good  night  glance  at  the 
parlor  windows  of  the  house  across 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

the  way.  Then  I  started,  called  my 
wife,  and  we  riveted  our  two  noses 
to  the  pane. 

"The  Silhouettes!"  I  exclaimed 
hoarsely. 

"Sshh !"  she  cautioned,  and  took  my 
hand. 

The  Man  Silhouette  was  talking 
earnestly  to  the  Girl  Silhouette,  and 
she  was  shaking  her  head.  But  sud- 
denly she  leaned  closer  to  him,  and 
threw  her  arms  about  his  neck,  and 
he  kissed  her,  and  she  ran  from  the 
room  and  left  him  standing  there. 

Presently  the  Girl  Silhouette  came 
back,  leading  by  the  hand  a  large,  fat 
Silhouette  with  whiskers.  I  recog- 
nized him  as  the  man  I  had  seen 

49 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

mowing  the  lawn  and  working  the 
garden  hose.  He  shook  hands  with 
the  Man  Silhouette,  and  kissed  the 
Girl  on  the  forehead,  and  joined  their 
hands,  and  seemed  to  call  toward  the 
hallway;  whereupon  a  fourth  Silhou- 
ette came  in. 

"It's  the  Girl's  mother!"  said  my 
wife. 

They  all  stood  together,  and  bowed 
and  nodded  and  that  sort  of  thing 
for  an  unconscionably  long  time,  un- 
til our  noses  were  cold  from  the  glass. 
And  then  the  Silhouette  with  the 
whiskers  pushed  all  the  other  Silhou- 
ettes in  the  direction  in  which  we 
knew  their  dining  room  lay,  and 
stepped  back  to  turn  off  the  lights. 

50 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

When  there  was  nothing  to  see  but 
the  blank  curtain,  we  went  upstairs; 
and  after  I  had  retired  my  wife  crept 
away.  I  awoke  and  found  her  an 
hour  later,  sound  asleep  with  her  nose 
against  the  pane,  her  unseeing  eyes 
turned  toward  the  house  across  the 
way,  and  a  smile  on  her  lips.  I  lifted 
her  and  put  her  on  the  bed — and  she 
didn't  stir  until  morning. 

"That  Man  Silhouette,"  I  said  at 
breakfast;  "did  you  see  him  last 
night  after  the — er — incident  on  the 
blinds?" 

"Certainly  not!"  she  replied,  al- 
most indignantly.  "You  men  all  think 
women  are  curious." 

I     wondered    if     she    had     only 

51 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

dreamed,  or  could  she  be  a  somnam- 
bulist ! 

"But,"  she  added,  as  she  poured 
the  coffee,  "I'm  going  to  see  what  he 
looks  like  to-night,  if  I  never  get  to 
bed;  and  I'm  going  to  see  her  if  I 
have  to  go  over  there  and  borrow  but- 
ter!" 

There  you  go  again,  Youth! 
There  you  are  at  it,  Romance! 

What  would  I  not  give  to  be  back 
myself,  to  the  time  when  we,  may- 
hap, were  silhouettes  for  the  enter- 
tainment of  our  neighbors!  But 
come  on,  old  man,  come  on!  You 
must  go  straight  ahead,  day  by  day, 
week  by  week,  month  by  month,  year 
by  year!  Somewhere  ahead  there  is 
52 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

a  marble  shaft,  and  a  place  with  the 
roses ;  but  your  cradle  is  broken,  your 
little  tin  wagon  is  rusted,  your  Noah's 
Ark  is  buried  under  the  dust  of  years 
— and  you  have  had  your  frivols! 


53 


FIFTH  PERIOD 

Buying  a  house  when  spring  is 
young  involves  a  lot  of  thought  and 
anxiety,  from  which  is  developed  a 
high  nervous  pressure.  You  alter- 
nate days  of  earnest  application  and 
enforced  recuperation. 

One  begins  to  learn,  too,  how  much 
he  doesn't  know. 

Our  yard,  we  found,  was  admirably 
adapted  to  quarry  purposes,  or  would 
make  an  excellent  clay  bank.  Wil- 
liam told  us  he  would  level  up  the 
back  lot  and  then  put  on  a  top  soil 
and  add  a  sort  of  compost  of  manure 
54 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

and  loam,  in  which  we  could  plant 
things.  I  reserved  a  square  18  by  25 
feet  for  a  patent  wire  pigeon  fly. 

"Why  will  you  raise  pigeons?" 
asked  my  wife. 

"I  will  raise  pigeons,"  I  replied 
with  dignity,  "for  their  giblets.  I 
love  pigeon  giblets.  You  may  have 
the  squibs." 

"You  mean  squabs,"  said  my  wife. 

"I  said  squibs,"  I  insisted  stanchly. 
"You  should  say  squabs,"  suggested 
my  wife  mildly.  "I  will  have  squibs 
or  nothing,"  I  replied,  as  becoming 
master  of  the  house,  and  squibs  it 
was.  So  be  it  known,  we  are  going  to 
raise  squibs. 

"And  I,"  said  my  wife,  "shall  raise 

55 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

a  tomato.  The  back  of  the  lot  is  in 
an  all-day  sun,  and  tomatoes  thrive 
in  the  sun." 

"And  a  turnip  or  two,"  I  said.  "If 
you  plant  a  couple  of  turnips  and  let 
nature  take  its  course,  you'll  have 
turnips  all  over  the  place.  I've  heard 
that  turnips  and  belgian  hares  are 
noted  for " 

"And  sweet  peas,"  said  my  wife,  "I 
shall  train  them  against  the  house." 

"You  cannot  train  a  pea,"  I  said 
scornfully.  "You  may  train  a  pig,  or 
a  dog,  but  you  cannot  train  a 
pea." 

One  of  the  reasons  women  may  not 
vote  is  that  they  say  just  such  foolish 
things  as  that !  Train  a  pea,  indeed ! 

56 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

I  would  as  lief  try  to  train  a  door- 
knob! 

With  this  little  difficulty  settled  and 
out  of  the  way,  we  made  ready  for 
serious  work. 

We  were  rather  late  getting  into 
our  gardening,  but  made  up  in  en- 
thusiasm what  we  lacked  in  knowl- 
edge. With  a  piece  of  string  and  a 
few  sticks,  Yours  Truly  laid  off  a 
strip  from  the  steps  around  the  front 
porch  to  the  side  foundation;  and 
then  with  a  spade  the  same  victim 
of  circumstances  broke  his  back  in 
three  places  and  wore  two  lovely  blis- 
ters into  the  palms  of  his  forepaws. 

Uncle  Henry  got  his  foot  into  the 
soil  with  a  spade  which,  peculiarly 

57 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

enough,  was  borrowed  from  one 
named  Cain,  who  lives  next  door. 
That  other  Cain  was  the  father  of 
agricolists.  Observe  how  history  car- 
ries itself  down  the  ages  with  con- 
sistency! And  to  complete  the  pic- 
ture, observe  me  watering  the  earth 
with  my  sweat ! 

Who  in  thunder  ever  invented  the 
scheme  of  hiding  pieces  of  brick, 
broken  concrete,  can  tops,  chunks  of 
wood  and  the  wreck  of  dishes  right 
where  a  fellow  wants  to  dig  a  gar- 
den? I  like  a  practical  joke  myself, 
but  that  is  going  too  far.  In  taking 
off  the  top  soil  there  was  a  reason- 
ably clear  thoroughfare,  but  when  the 
heft  of  my  hoof  went  against  the  heel 

58 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

of  the  spade  for  the  first  downward 
dash,  it  struck  an  impenetrable  am- 
bush of  mason's  findings. 

To  make  it  worse,  my  wife  stood  on 
the  porch  cheerfully  lending  her  aid 
in  the  form  of  advice.  The  man  who 
owned  the  spade  sat  comfortably  on 
his  own  porch  reading  THE  EVENING 
SUN,  and  now  and  then  glancing  over 
the  top  at  me  with  an  amused  smile. 
William  came  along. 

"Are  you  digging  a  garden?"  he 
asked. 

"No,"  I  replied  idiotically;  "I  am 
running  a  footrace  with  an  angle- 
worm !" 

The  Duke  of  Mont  Alto  whizzed 
by  in  his  automobile  and  waved  his 

59 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

hand.  He  tooted  twice.  I  think  he 
was  kidding  me.  A  friend,  wending 
homeward  with  his  dinnerpail,  paused 
to  observe  that  it  was  hot  weather  for 
digging.  That  self-consciousness 
that  makes  the  whole  world  miserable 
on  occasion  seized  me.  From  every 
window  I  imagined  delighted  neigh- 
bors looking  on ;  in  the  twitter  of  the 
birds  I  heard  merry  giggles. 

But  against  and  in  spite  of  all  these 
handicaps  I  persisted.  I  had  as  im- 
plements, in  addition  to  Cain's  spade 
— how  I  love  that  connection! — one 
table  knife,  one  garden  claw,  one 
trowel,  one  sharp  stick,  one  cracked 
hoe,  and  one  perfectly  good  vocabu- 
lary. I  went  after  the  clay  ground 
60 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

with  my  hands  in  preference  to  any 
or  all  of  the  tools,  and  after  half  an 
hour  of  agony  had  removed,  by  ac- 
tual count,  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
seven  large  stones  and  a  small  pile  of 
pebbles,  none  of  the  pebbles  weighing 
more  than  one  pound.  Then  with  my 
hands  I  crumbled  the  dirt  chunks  into 
powder  and  carefully  sifted, 
smoothed  off,  rolled,  tumbled,  and 
otherwise  adjusted  the  net  product. 

Sweat  is  the  fluid  excreted  from 
the  sudoriferous  glands  of  the  skin. 

The  sudoriferous  glands  of  Yours 
Truly  worked  overtime.  Yours 
Truly  excreted,  exuded,  flooded.  To 
be  swimming  around  in  your  own  at- 
mosphere is  a  novel  and  sometimes 
61 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

pleasurable  experience.  It's  funny 
how  a  man  bowls  sixteen-ounce  balls 
until  his  ribs  crack  and  sits  in  a 
Turkish  bath  until  each  pore  is  a 
geyser,  and  yet  when  that  same  re- 
sult is  obtained  by  means  of  honest 
labor  and  by  pushing  a  spade,  he 
complains. 

I  cut  the  lines  of  this  little  front 
garden  deep  and  clean,  and  sloped 
the  pulverized  earth  back  so  that 
there  would  be  a  perpetual  irrigation 
in  the  ditch  from  the  overflow.  Rath- 
er clever  idea,  that.  Then  my  wife 
got  out  the  dwarf  nasturtium  seeds 
and  we  put  them  in  a  box,  and  the 
box  in  the  conservatory,  and  myself 
into  the  shower.  I  don't  see  how  a 
62 


THAT   HOUSE   I   BOUGHT 

farmer  can  get  along  without  a  show- 
er in  the  house. 

We  had  about  six  hundred  nastur- 
tium seeds  in  envelopes  bearing  to- 
tally misleading  pictures  of  what 
they  will  look  like.  I  filled  a  box 
with  rough  earth  and  then  pulverized 
it  with  an  ice-pick.  Then  I  stuck 
holes  with  my  finger  and  put  one 
seed  in  each  hole.  After  my  finger- 
nails had  developed  into  a  screaming 
argument  for  the  use  of  soap,  my 
wife  discovered  that  I  had  planted 
them  too  deep. 

"You'll  have  to  take  them  all  out 
and  plant  them  again,"  she  said. 

I  scratched  my  head,  standing 
thoughtfully  on  one  foot  the  while. 

63 


THAT   HOUSE   I   BOUGHT 

"I  will  not,"  I  said.  "I  will  just 
scrape  an  inch  of  dirt  off  the  top !" 

When  it  comes  to  inventing  labor- 
saving  devices,  I'm  a  mental  gatling. 

Nothing  happened  to  those  nastur- 
tium seeds  for  five  days.  On  the 
morning  of  the  fifth  day  I  heard  a 
scream  from  my  wife  and  rushed 
downstairs,  to  find  her  leaning  over 
the  nasturtium  box. 

"Oooooeeee !  Lookee !"  she  shriek- 
ed. 

I  looked. 

Then  I  yelled.  I  grabbed  her  in 
both  arms  and  danced  around  the 
conservatory  like  a  plumb  fool.  Then 
we  both  ran  back  and  leaned  over  the 
box,  and  raved.  There  were  half  a 

64 


THAT   HOUSE   I   BOUGHT 

dozen  little  greenish-white  stalks 
sticking  out,  each  top  curved  over  like 
a  dear  little  ingrowing  nail. 

"Aren't  they  cute!"  exclaimed  my 
wife. 

"Cute!"  I  said,  in  disgust.  "Why, 
my  dear,  they're  not  cute — they're 
wonderful !" 

I  pushed  the  window  up  a  little  to 
give  them  air.  My  wife  caught  my 
arm  excitedly  and  pulled  it  down 
again. 

"You  must'nt  do  that,"  she  said; 
"you'll  freeze  the  sprouts !" 

"Sprouts,"  I  said,  "come  on  pota- 
toes, onions,  cabbages,  and  beets. 
These  are  not  sprouts;  they  are 
bulbs!" 

65 


THAT   HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

She  said  not  a  word,  but  got  a  book 
and  showed  me  a  picture  of  a  bulb — 
a  tulip  bulb. 

"That,"  she  said,  "is  a  bulb.  These 
are  sprouts." 

If  there's  anything  that  makes 
home  unhappy,  it's  that  atmosphere 
of  superiority  in  a  woman.  I  tried  to 
point  out  to  her  that  she  couldn't 
believe  everything  she  saw  in  a 
book. 

"History,"  I  said,  "is  continually 
changing.  That  may  have  been  a 
bulb  at  the  time  of  publication, 
but " 

It  was  no  use.    I  had  to  give  in. 
She  had  the  dots  on  Uncle  Henry  for 
sure,  but  you've  got  to  give  it  to  me 
66 


THAT   HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

— you've  just  got  to.    How  was  this 
one  ?    Listen : 

"Of  course  they're  sprouts.  I  knew 
they  were  sprouts  all  the  time.  I  was 
just  trying  to  catch  you." 


SIXTH  PERIOD 

There  are  four  little  disconnected 
adventures  in  my  notes  that  must  find 
a  place  somewhere,  and  so  I  have  de- 
cided to  bunch  them  all  in  this  chap- 
ter. If  you'll  draw  your  chair  up 
closer,  I'll  give  them  to  you  in  order : 

First — The  Adventure  of  the  Pros- 
pective Tenant. 

Second — The  Adventure  of  the 
Mysterious  Push  Button. 

Third— The  Adventure  of  the  Re- 
luctant Cow. 

Fourth — The    Adventure    of    the 
Nasty  Little  Fat  Robin. 
68 


THAT   HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

Now  for  the  Adventure  of  the 
Prospective  Tenant. 

The  fact  has  been  mentioned  that 
we  yearned  to  let  our  second  floor  of 
four  beautiful  rooms,  private  bath 
and  shower,  closet  in  every  room, 
large  plumbing,  polished  floors  and 
heaven  knows  what.  As  a  condition 
precedent  to  becoming  a  flatlord,  I  ap- 
pealed to  the  populace  through  the 
want  ad.  My  first  copy  ran  like  this : 

3313  BATEMAN  AVENUE,  MONT  ALTO— 
30  minutes  from  City  Hall;  four  rooms  and 
private  hallway;  bath  with  shower  and 
spray,  private;  fine  southern  exposure  two 
rooms;  airy,  ample  windows;  use  of  parlor, 
porch,  piano  and  laundry;  water-heated;  Gar- 
rison avenue  cars;  beautiful  neighborhood; 
splendid  view  of  city  and  bay;  no  children; 
will  give  breakfast  if  desired;  church  within 
a  block;  nearest  saloon  three  miles  away,  but 
very  fast  street  cars  to  that  point.  Burglars 
shun  neighborhood  and  nobody  ever  gets 
drunk. 

69 


TEAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

There  were  other  things  I  over- 
looked, but  we  decided  to  let  it  go  at 
that.  Certainly  virtues  had  been  men- 
tioned which  should  overcome  any 
prejudice  against  suburban  life  and 
the  crickets.  Blithely  I  passed  the 
copy  over  the  counter  and  inquired 
the  cost.  The  man  smiled. 

"Why  don't  you  make  this  a  dis- 
play ad.  and  get  a  seven-cent  flat 
rate  on  a  six  months'  contract?"  he 
inquired, 

I  hate  a  sarcastic  man  with  a  pen- 
cil. 

"If  you  don't  like  that,"  I  said,  "do 
it  yourself !" 

To  make  a  long  recital  short,  he 
put  it  satisfactorily  into  four  lines 
70 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

and  we  waited  for  replies.  We'll 
skip  the  first  forty  or  fifty  that  didn't 
suit  us.  One  day  there  came  a  gen- 
tleman who  looked  at  our  four  rooms, 
raved  over  them  and  made  a  propo- 
sition, to  wit:  If  we  would  put  a 
gas  range  and  sink  in  the  red  room, 
open  up  the  wall  in  the  front  room 
and  build  a  sleeping  porch  for  his 
baby,  furnish  refrigerating  plant  for 
all  the  baby's  milk  and  allow  him  the 
free  use  of  the  telephone,  he  would 
take  our  four  rooms  for  three  months 
at  $18  a  month. 

"My  good  friend,"  I  said,  with 
suppressed  emotion,  "you  overwhelm 
us.  Can't  we  remove  the  roof  and 
build  a  little  nursery  for  the  baby, 

71 


TEAT   ROUSE   I  BOUGHT 

and  rig  you  up  a  rainy-weather  play- 
room in  the  basement  ?  We  expected 
to  get  $50  a  month,  unfurnished, 
without  changes ;  but  you  have  made 
us  to  see  the  error  of  our  conceit. 
Can't  we  let  you  ha^e  the  piano  at  the 
end  of  your  three  months,  to  move 
away  to  your  future  home,  as  an  ex- 
pression of  good  will?" 

He  made  a  gesture  of  protest. 

"No,"  I  insisted,  "we  will  not  have 
it  any  other  way.  You  must  accept 
our  hospitality,  sir — you  simply  must ! 
My  wife  has  a  diamond  ring  that  I'm 
sure  she  would  be  delighted  to  give 
your  wife,  and  any  time  you  want  a 
trunk  carried  up  or  down  stairs  just 
call  on  me.  My  clothes  would  about 
72 


THAT   HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

fit  you — allow  me  to  lend  you  my 
dress  suit  and  pajamas !  Not  a  word, 
sir,  not  a  word!  I  will  not  permit 
you  to  excel  me  in  generosity.  And 
as  for  your  $18.  I  wouldn't  think  of 
taking  it!  Give  it  to  a  fund  to  pro- 
vide red  flannel  nightshirts  for  the 
little  heathens  in  Timbuctoo.  They 
need  the  night  shirts,  and,  believe 
me,  I  thoroughly  detest  money !" 

He  went  away,  and  going  in  told 
the  conductor  that  he  was  glad  he 
didn't  get  roped  into  that  lunatic  asy- 
lum. 

Now  the  Adventure  of  the  Myste- 
rious Push  Button : 

What  a  wonderful  lot  of  push  but- 

73 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

tons  a  contractor  can  get  into  ten 
rooms  and  a  basement ! 

My  wife  and  I  jammed  our  thumbs 
into  at  least  thirty  different  kinds, 
trying  them  out.  There  were  push 
buttons  to  turn  on  the  electric  light, 
push  buttons  to  call  the  indefinite 
servant,  push  buttons  to  ring  bells  of 
all  sorts.  I  half  expected  to  find  a 
push  button  that  would  kick  a  collec- 
tor off  the  porch,  but  was  disappoint- 
ed. 

We  wondered  who  made  all  the 
push  buttons,  and  how  much  royalty 
they  paid. 

A  push  button  in  That  House  I 
Bought  turns  on  the  porch  light  and 
another  on  the  second  floor  lights  the 
74 


THAT   HOUSE   I   BOUGHT 

hallway  at  the  foot  of  the  grand 
staircase,  so  that  in  case  of  burglars 
the  lady  of  the  house  doesn't  have  to 
go  down  in  advance,  carrying  the 
lamp. 

"That,"  I  said,  "is  a  distinct  con- 
venience. I  can  imagine  the  discom- 
fiture of  the  burglar  who  suddenly 
finds  himself  illuminated  for  a  Mardi 
Gras  pageant,  all  ready  to  be  shot  up 
like  a  cheese  or  a  porous  plaster." 

"Would  you  shoot  a  burglar?" 
asked  my  wife  admiringly. 

I  imitated  a  pouter  pigeon  with  my 
chest. 

"The  extent  of  my  murders,"  I  re- 
plied, "would  be  limited  only  by  the 
supply  of  burglars." 

75 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

It  does  a  fellow  a  lot  of  good,  when 
he  is  just  moving  into  the  responsi- 
bilities of  a  real  citizen,  to  perform 
mental  assassinations  like  that.  I 
piled  up  my  dead  and  we  passed  on. 

We  found,  by  pushing  another  but- 
ton, that  the  Consolidated  Gas  and 
Electric  Light  Company  had  provided 
the  chandeliers  in  both  parlor  and 
dining  room  with  as  many  globes  as 
could  be  crowded  into  the  set.  The 
man  who  put  them  in  left  them  all 
turned  on.  We  burned  fully  seven 
cents'  worth  of  watts  before  it  oc- 
curred to  us  to  limit  the  incandescence 
by  turning  off  a  few  globes.  Then 
my  wife  got  a  mania  for  economizing, 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

and  it  was  Uncle  Henry  on  a  high 
chair  under  every  individual  set  of 
lights,  tickling  the  little  flat  black  key 
things  into  a  subdued  quiescence. 
We  left  one  watt  incubator  in  each 
set,  with  the  understanding  that  if 
company  came  we'd  turn  on  the  whole 
business  and  average  it  up  on  the 
month  by  sitting  as  late  as  possible  on 
the  front  porch. 

But  there  was  one  button  that  got 
me.  It  was  in  the  front  bedroom  with 
the  double-mirror  doors  on  the  big 
closet.  We  pushed  it  and  didn't  hear 
a  thing.  Logically,  it  ought  to  do 
something.  I  pushed  again  and  lis- 
tened for  the  tinkle.  My  wife  went 
upstairs  and  downstairs,  while  I 

77 


THAT   HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

pushed,  and  every  now  and  then  I'd 
yell  at  her. 

"Anything  happening?" 

"No,"  she  would  reply.  "Push  it 
real  quickly  and  see  if  you  can't  take 
it  by  surprise !" 

I  tried  every  method  I  could  think 
of  to  make  that  push  button  earn  its 
existence.  Every  day  since  I've  tried 
it,  determined  to  learn  what  it  ought 
to  do  or  die  in  the  attempt.  But  to 
this  day  that  push  button  is  a  mys- 
tery. 

The  Adventure  of  the  Reluctant 
Cow: 

Billy  Pentz  wants  to  know  if  we 
will  keep  a  bee  at  our  house.  We  will 

78 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

not.  And  another  thing,  I  don't  know 
why  bees  are  kept  in  an  apiary.  I 
cannot  see  the  line  of  identification 
between  bees  and  apes.  Apes  should 
be  kept  in  an  apiary;  bees  should  be 
kept  in  a  beeswax. 

But  we  have  been  thinking  about 
a  cow.  There  is  a  company  cowary 
right  back  of  our  house,  and  when 
the  wind  is  from  the  south  the  call  of 
the  diary  is  strong  upon  us.  Pardon 
me,  I  should  have  written  the  dairy. 
There's  another  digression.  Why 
should  the  transportation  of  two  let- 
ters change  a  notebook  into  a  milk 
foundry? 

I  watched  William  milking  a  cow 
in  the  cowary,  and  the  ease  with 

79 


THAT   ROUSE   I  BOUGHT 

which  he  performed  what  to  me 
seemed  no  less  than  magic  was  sim- 
ply astounding.  Sitting  there  as 
quietly  as  you  please,  on  an  inverted 
bucket,  with  an  uninverted  bucket 
between  his  knees,  he  directed  streams 
of  embryo  butter  and  ice-cream  and 
custard  into  the  centre  of  a  foaming 
pool  with  no  more  concern  than  a 
Queen  of  the  sixth  century  would 
show  in  knifing  a  kneeling  page. 

"We  will  get  a  cow,"  I  announced 
briefly,  but  with  that  masterful 
tone  that  identifies  me  in  any  com- 
pany. 

My  wife  looked  at  me,  the  way 
some  women  look  at  some  men.     I 
withered  but  held  my  ground. 
80 


THAT   HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

"Why,  you  can't  even  milk  a  cow !" 
she  said. 

Now,  I've  never  taken  a  dare  from 
any  woman.  I  hiked  right  back  down 
the  patch,  careless  of  the  newly  sown 
grass  plots,  and  blundered  into  the 
cowary. 

"William,"  I  said,  "arise  and  hand 
me  that  can !  I'm  going  to  show  you 
how  I  used  to  milk  when  I  was  a 
cowboy !" 

If  this  were  fiction  it  would  be 
funny,  but  it's  fact;  and  many  a 
thing  that's  funny  in  fiction  is  trag- 
edy in  fact. 

William  handed  me  the  bucket.  I 
said,  "So,  Bossy,"  and  seated  myself 
just  as  I  had  seen  William  do  it,  with 
81 


THAT   HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

my  feet  crossed  and  the  bucket  be- 
tween my  knees.  That  it  slipped  the 
first  time  and  slopped  over  my  trou- 
sers was  merely  an  incident.  After 
I'd  managed  a  half-nelson  grip  with 
my  knee  caps  I  grabbed  a  couple  of 
the  cow's  depending  protuberances 
and  squeezed.  Nothing  happened.  I 
squeezed  again  and  pulled.  A  couple 
of  drops  trickled  into  the  palms  of 
my  hands.  Encouraged,  I  tried  a  jiu- 
jitsu  stunt  designed  to  astonish  the 
cow  into  yielding  to  superior  intelli- 
gence, and  she  looked  around  at  me 
and  grinned. 

I   say   that   cow   grinned.     Some 
one  once  told  me  that  among  ani- 
mals only  hyenas  could  grin.    Then 
82 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

this    cow    was  a  hyena,  that's    all. 

I  tackled  her  again,  shoving  my 
head  into  her  ribs  after  the  manner  of 
certain  yokels  I  had  observed,  as  if 
there  must  be  a  secret  spring  to  push 
open  the  vents.  William  and  the  cow 
grinned  a  duet.  I  pulled  and  pushed, 
twisted  and  tugged,  coaxed  and 
threatened,  and  finally  I  said  some- 
thing to  that  cow  that  was  uncouth. 

Heaven  forgive  me  for  ever  speak- 
ing rudely  to  a  lady  beef ! 

She  lifted  her  near  hind  hoof  and 
sent  the  bucket  flying.  Then  she 
moved  over  against  me  and  mingled 
me  with  the  soft  sod.  I  got  up  and 
silently  handed  William  a  quarter, 
winking  the  while  to  accent  the  hush. 

83 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

When    I    went    into    the    house    I 
said: 

"My  dear,  William  informs  me  that 
the  company  may  keep  a  cow  around 
here,  but  by  the  terms  of  our  purchase 
we  may  not.  It's  a  rank  discrimina- 
tion, but  I'm  afraid  we  cannot  have  a 
cow.  The  Duke  of  Mont  Alto  and 
the  city  ordinances  will  not  permit 
it!" 

The  Adventure  of  the  Nasty  Little 
Fat  Robin: 

I  don't  know  the  botanical  names 
of  the  birds  around  our  house;  in 
fact,  I  am  not  sure  that  botany  is  the 
science  of  birds.  But,  at  any  rate,  we 
have  half  a  dozen  trees  and  each  one 

84 


THAT   HOUSE   I   BOUGHT 

is  a  choir  loft.  No  wheezing  organ, 
with  rattling  foot  pedals  and  thump- 
ing water-pump,  disturbs  the  clear 
harmonies  of  their  music.  No  sonor- 
ous basso  in  the  amen  corner  growls 
out  a  flat  profundo  to  insult  the  mem- 
ory of  Phoebe  Carey;  no  shrill  tenor 
raises  his  chin  until  his  Adam's  ap- 
ple sticks  out  like  a  loose  bung  in  a 
cider  barrel,  to  shriek  his  blasphemy 
of  divine  music ! 

We  have  just  the  little  birds,  whose 
throats  swell  and  swell  until  you 
would  think  they  must  burst,  and  who 
sing  their  love-bugles  through  the 
branches  careless  of  their  audience. 
Wonderful  cadenzas  chase  each  other 
in  a  game  of  lyric  tag,  never  weary- 

85 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

ing,  never  breaking.  Trills  that  can 
be  written  only  in  spirit  composition 
— long  notes  that  sometimes  salute 
a  saint,  sometimes  absolve  a  sinner — 
sibilant  sighs  that  bring  up  mem- 
ories— all  these  things  we  have  in  oifr 
choir,  and  upon  them  there  is  no 
mortgage ! 

There's  a  nasty  little  fat  robin  out- 
side our  kitchen  door,  though,  who  is 
some  day  going  to  meet  disaster. 

We  feed  the  robins  on  crumbs,  and 
throw  them  such  little  delicacies  as 
cracked  marrow  bones,  chunks  of  suet 
and  bits  of  sugar.  When  they  have 
finished  eating  they  hurry  to  the  end 
of  the  house,  where  there  is  always 
a  little  water  trickling  out  to  make  a 
86 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

bird  fountain.  (Item:  I  must  build 
a  regular  bird  fountain. )  This  nasty 
little  fat  robin,  who  is  going  straight 
into  trouble,  is  a  hog  on  wings.  All 
the  others  will  be  cheerfully  setting 
about  their  dinner,  when  he  will  rush 
in,  nibble  a  single  bite  and  then  stand 
guard  over  the  rest,  to  keep  them 
from  it.  I  do  not  know  whether  to 
call  him  Rottenfeller  for  hogging  it, 
or  Rosenfelt  for  fighting. 

Now  Kadott  is  my  pet.  I've  called 
her  Kadott  for  a  little  missionary 
Japanese  friend,  who  lives  at  Hadji 
Konak,  and  I  wonder  if  the  Japanese 
at  Hadji  Konak  will  appreciate  the 
honor  ?  The  one  thing  that  makes  me 
fond  of  Kadott  is  that  she  is  very 

87 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

much  in  love  with  me;  but  she  an- 
noys me,  too,  because  she  makes  me 
keep  my  distance  and  still  coquettes. 
She  has  an  odd  little  trick  of  coming 
nearly  to  me,  turning  her  head  and 
cocking  her  ear,  as  if  to  say : 

"There  is  going  to  be  a  love  scene, 
and  I  must  beware  of  eavesdroppers." 

Some  of  these  days  she  will  eat 
from  my  hand.  But  now  she  only 
comes  close  and  darts  away  at  the 
first  approach.  She  has  built  her 
nest  and  she  has  the  mother  instinct. 
When  she  has  hatched  her  little  fam- 
ily I'm  going  to  be  Uncle  Henry  to 
every  one  of  them. 

And  that  is  what  I've  been  trying 
to  get  to.  If  the  nasty  little  fat  robin 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

butts  into  Kadott's  family  relations, 
there  will  be  a  murder.  My  hands 
will  be  red  with  the  blood  of  a  bandit. 
When  you  come  out  to  That  House 
I  Bought,  stay  all  night  and  listen 
to  the  birds  in  the  early  morning. 
It  seems  to  me  that  a  man  who  listens 
to  the  birds  in  the  right  spirit  ought 
to  make  a  fairly  decent  citizen,  in 
time. 


SEVENTH  PERIOD 

My  wife  is  a  most  observant  wom- 
an. 

"Love,"  she  said  to  me,  apparently 
apropos  of  nothing  at  all,  "must  be  a 
farce  in  a  country  where  there  is  no 
moonlight." 

I  nodded  assent.  It  didn't  strike 
me  as  being  worth  much  more. 

"I  wonder  what  is  the  trouble?" 
she  said,  after  a  pause. 

"Trouble?"  I  repeated  inquiringly. 

"Across  the  street,"  she  explained, 
"there  were  two  Silhouettes  in  the 
parlor  Monday  night,  and  one  went 
90 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

away  early;  the  other  had  her  hand- 
kerchief to  her  eyes " 

"Oho!  So  you've  been  keeping 
cases,  eh  ?" 

"I  don't  get  your  vernacular,"  she 
retorted  meaningly. 

"Well— er — what's  this  got  to  do 
with  moonlight  ?"  I  demanded,  chang- 
ing the  subject. 

"It  was  moonlight  last  night,  and 
it's  moonlight  to-night,"  she  replied, 
"and  all  the  derbies  on  the  hat-rack 
over  there  belong  to  the  men  in  the 
family,  and  it's  nine-thirty.  It  seems 
to  me  that  if  I  were  the  Man  Silhou- 
ette, I'd  at  least  write,  but  the  mail- 
man hasn't  stopped  there  but  once  in 
four  days,  and  then  he  only  delivered 

91 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

a  circular,  because  I  got  one  myself 
and  I  recognized  it  by  the  big  red 
type  on  the  envelope,  and — I  think 
it's  a  shame,  that's  what  I  do,  and  I 
don't  care,  so  there!" 

You  know,  when  a  woman  doesn't 
care,  so  there,  she  usually  gets  all 
worked  up  about  it.  It's  a  way  she 
has  of  showing  her  indifference. 

"Have  you  seen  him  yet — the  Man 
Silhouette?"  I  asked. 

"No,"  she  replied;  "but  I  thought, 
if  he  came  to-night,  it's  so  bright  and 
all,  I'd  get  a  peep  at  his  face.  It 
would  be  awful  if  he  were  a  dissi- 
pated man !" 

"You  don't  know  her,  and  you  don't 
know  him,  and  you  don't  know  her 
92 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

folks,  and  what  difference  does  it 
make  to  you  whether  he  runs  a  church 
or  a  roulette  wheel?"  I  asked  mildly. 

I  went  into  the  house  and — well, 
yes,  I  might  as  well  admit  it — sat  at 
the  window  where  I  could  command 
a  clear  view  of  the  parlor  opposite. 
This  affair  was  getting  to  be  personal 
with  me.  And  then  I  think  a  fellow 
ought  to  show  an  interest  in  anything 
that  is  close  to  his  wife's  sympathies. 
So  while  she  watched  on  the  porch,  I 
watched  from  the  window. 

He  didn't  come  that  night,  and  he 
didn't  come  the  next  night.  But 
while  I  was  watching — not  obtrusive- 
ly, you  know,  but  just  sympathetical- 
ly— a  messenger  boy  ran  up  the  steps. 

93 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

The  door  opened  halfway  and  he  de- 
livered a  message  and  waited  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  left,  dashing  up 
street  on  his  wheel.  I  was  pondering, 
when  our  telephone  bell  rang.  I  an- 
swered. A  sweet  young  voice  called : 

"Exchange,  give  me  Mount  Ver- 
non  1,000,  please — the  Hotel  Belve- 
dere." 

I  broke  in. 

"Hello!  Hello!  You're  on  a  busy 
wire !  Exchange " 

"Oh,  please,  sir,  please  get  off  the 
line  and  let  me  have  it !  This  is  very 
important !" 

I  mumbled  something  and  hung  up 
the  receiver.  Then  I  went  back  to 
my  window  and  gazed  across  the 
94 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

street  again.  The  hall  light  was 
turned  on — the  first  time  I  had  no- 
ticed it  alone.  The  pale  blind  was 
down,  but  the  light — why,  a  Silhou- 
ette at  the  telephone ! 

I  ran  to  the  kitchen,  where  my  wife 
was  messing  with  pots  and  pans. 

"I've  got  it,  I've  got  it!"  I 
screamed,  waltzing  her  around. 

"You  act  like  it,"  she  said,  laugh- 
ing and  disengaging  herself.  "What 
have  you  got  ?" 

"She's  calling  him  up  at  the  Belve- 
dere !  Telegram — telephone  in  hall — 
light— Silhouette— go  look!" 

She  ran  all  the  way  to  the  window, 
and  then  I  had  to  sit  down  and  tell 
her  just  how  I  knew  it  must  be  the 

95 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

Man  Silhouette.  All  the  circum- 
stances were  too  plain.  There  was  no 
doubt  of  it.  Her  intuition  backed  up 
my  judgment.  We  sat  on  the  porch 
until  after  ten,  and  then  a  closed  taxi 
was  driven  rapidly  to  the  little  walk. 
A  man,  bundled  in  a  big  coat,  handed 
the  chauffeur  something  and  dis- 
missed him,  and  hurried  up  to  the 
porch.  The  door  swung  open  without 
summons  and  he  entered. 

Ten  minutes  later  my  wife  said : 

"I  wonder  if  the  belt  has  slipped 
off  down  at  the  power  house  ?" 

I  grunted. 

"My  dear,"  I  said,  "if  you  had 
quarreled  and  if  you  were  making  up 
on  a  moonlight  night,  would  you  both- 

96 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

er  about  wasting  kilowatts  of  elec- 
tricity?" 

She  wrinkled  her  forehead. 

"But  the  moonlight  is  on  the  out- 
side  of  the  house." 

"That's  just  where  you're  mis- 
taken," I  ventured.  "It  was  all  out- 
side, but  they're  getting  all  they  need 
of  it  through  the  cracks  on  the  sides 
of  the  curtain." 

She  sighed. 

"And  moreover,"  I  added,  "I'm 
going  to  bed." 

And  I  did;  and  there  were  no  Sil- 
houettes. At  midnight  or  worse  my 
wife  said: 

"I  don't  know  much  else  about  that 
man,  but  I  know  one  thing." 

97 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

"What's  that?"  I  asked. 

"He's  stingy,"  was  her  reply;  and 
I'll  admit,  myself,  that  he  might  have 
turned  up  the  lights  just  a  little 
while. 

But  all  this  is  foreign  to  the  House. 
We  awoke  next  morning  to  a  busy 
experience,  for  our  friends  descend- 
ed upon  us.  You  know  there  is  one 
stage  through  which  you  will  have  to 
pass  when  you  buy  a  house,  and  for 
the  sake  of  a  name  we'll  call  it  the 
Inspection  of  Your  Intimates. 

The  ink  is  hardly  dry  on  the  deed, 
or  mortgage,  or  agreement,  or  what- 
ever your  instrument  of  conveyance 
may  be,  before  you  are  on  the  tele- 
phone inviting  them  out  to  look  at 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

you.  You  want  all  your  friends  to  see 
your  new  house — to  make  faces  at  it 
and  chuck  it  under  the  chin,  to  talk 
baby  talk  to  it  and  admire  your  pan- 
try. 

The  first  crack  out  of  the  box  Mrs. 
Smith  walks  in,  sizes  up  the  exterior 
with  a  sweeping  glance  as  she  enters, 
sniffs  the  atmosphere  laden  with 
fresh  smells  and  as  you  stand  at  judg- 
ment remarks: 

"H'm!" 

Now,  "H-m!"  may  mean  any  one 
of  twenty-seven  things.  You  stand 
on  one  foot  and  wait. 

"My  goodness,  what  small  rooms !" 
is  the  next  remark,  which  is  some- 
what softened  by  the  addition,  "but 

99 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

the  wall  paper  is  very  pretty,"  and  the 
reservation  damns  the  praise  again, 

"in  places.'* 

%     r 

All  this  time  you  are  alternating 
flushes  and  chills.  Your  spinal  col- 
umn is  a  sort  of  marathon  track  for 
emotions.  You  go  through  the  house 
with  her  and  show  the  bathroom  with 
its  shower,  over  which  she  enthuses, 
and  you  are  in  the  seventh  heaven  of 
satisfaction.  But  the  minute  she 
reaches  the  third  floor,  which  is  a 
sort  of  three-quarter  floor,  your  heart 
sinks  again,  because  she  remarks : 

"I  suppose  you  will  just  use  these 
little  rooms  for  storage!"  And 
you  had  fondly  thought  of  occu- 
pying them  yourself  and  renting  the 
100 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

second  floor  to  help  out  your  invest- 
ment. 

Mrs.  Smith  thinks  your  piano  is 
too  brilliant  on  the  hardwood  floor, 
and  when  she  has  gone  home  you 
shove  a  rug  under  it.  Mrs.  Jones 
comes  next  day  and  says  it  sounds 
dead  on  the  rug,  and  you  put  it  back 
on  the  floor.  Mrs.  Brown  gets  you 
to  try  it  both  ways  in  her  presence 
and  concludes  that  it  lacks  elevation 
and  would  sound  better  if  you  took  it 
upstairs;  while  Mrs.  Harris  con- 
ceives the  novel  idea  of  turning  the 
conservatory  into  a  music-room  for 
the  benefit  of  the  base  tiling. 

Your  prides-in-chief  are  the  linen 
closet,  the  big  closets  in  each  room, 
101 


\ 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

the  gas  range,  the  refrigerator  built 
into  the  wall  and  the  plumbing  fix- 
tures. And  you  are  a  bit  peeved 
when  Mrs.  Johnson  passes  every  one 
of  these  features  by  with  calm  in- 
difference and  raves  over  an  unimpor- 
tant railing  you've  had  hammered  on- 
to the  back  porch.  Nearly  every  one 
of  your  Intimates  comments  on  the 
fact  that  your  yard  looks  like  a 
quarry,  but  you  assure  each  one  that 
William  is  going  to  put  on  a  top  soil 
and  seed  it  down  and  you  are  going 
to  plant  a  turnip  and  substitute  a 
peach  tree  for  the  oak  that  was  struck 
by  lightning.  You  work  yourself  up 
into  a  human  catalogue  of  advantages 
as  you  describe  your  wonderful  plans, 
1 02 


TEAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

and  then  your  Intimate  shakes  her 
head  smilingly. 

"My  dear,"  she  says,  like  a  bloom- 
ing icicle,  "John  and  I  had  all  these 
plans  when  we  owned  a  house,  and 
we  never  did  get  our  yard  fixed.  You 
have  no  idea  of  the  work  and  the  ex- 
pense and  the  disappointments !  And 
don't  plant  any  Government  seeds. 
They  never  come  up." 

It's  an  odd  coincidence  that  your 
Congressman  has  just  supplied  you 
with  a  lot  of  radish,  onion,  lettuce, 
and  other  seeds,  and  that  you  have 
been  lying  awake  nights  passing  reso- 
lutions of  thanks  to  the  Agricultural 
Department. 

But  there  is  one  who  comes — 
103 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

Heaven  bless  her! — who  goes  into 
seven  fits  of  joy  and  envies  you  your 
happiness.  You  love  her  because  of 
it — and  because  she  is  your  mother. 


104 


EIGHTH  PERIOD 

The  real  enjoyment  of  home  comes 
when  for  the  first  time  you  are  tak- 
ing a  week  off. 

"Are  you  going  to  Atlantic  City?" 
asks  Jones. 

You  curl  your  lip  in  a  sneer  and 
tilt  your  nose  and  snort,  and  make 
yourself  superior. 

"Atlantic  City!  Do  I  look  easy? 
Atlantic  City,  boardwalk,  red  hot 
sun,  skinny  bathers,  flies  in  the  din- 
ing-room, at  $7  a  day?  Not  on  your 
life!  I'm  going  to  stay  home  and 
take  the  rest  cure — that's  me!  I'm 
going  to  sleep  late,  eat  four  meals  a 
105 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

day,  spade  my  garden  when  I  feel 
like  it  and  enjoy  life  right.  I'm  go- 
ing to  take  a  shower  bath  every  thir- 
ty-six minutes  and  no  company — not 
a  blooming  visitor — the  whole  week. 
What  I  want  is  absolute  rest." 

Jones  listens,  but  with  an  air  of 
one  who  is  wise. 

That  was  my  experience. 

I  was  getting  fagged,  brain-weary 
and  nervous  from  a  terrific  strain  of 
making  an  appearance  at  work.  The 
bluff  went  over  and  the  powers  that 
be  told  me  to  go  away  and  cut  out 
the  telephone.  So  out  to  That  House 
I  Bought  forthwith  hied  me — instant- 
er  removed.  To  drop  the  load,  to  for- 
get the  worries,  to  submerge  the  busi- 
106 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

ness  ego  in  a  week  of  solid  rest!    I 
was  getting  near  to  Heaven. 

The  first  morning  I  awoke  with  a 
start,  leaped  out  of  bed,  shed  my  pa- 
jamas and  grabbed  for  the  things  on 
the  chair.  I  was  dressed  and  half- 
way down  stairs  before  I  realized  that 
it  was  off  duty  for  mine.  O  joy!  I 
got  THE  SUN  from  the  porch  and 
read  the  leading  locals  and  saw  half  a 
dozen  stories  sticking  out  between  the 
lines.  The  telephone  was  handy;  I'd 
call  up  the  office  and  suggest — whoa ! 
The  telephone  had  been  cut  out. 

"Good!"  I  exclaimed  internally. 
"I'll  have  late  breakfast  and  sleep 
a  couple  of  hours." 

My  wife  came  down. 
107 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

"While  I'm  getting  breakfast,"  she 
said,  "suppose  you  turn  the  hose  on 
the  porch,  and  just  kind  of  dust  it 
off  with  this  broom.  The  girl  won't 
come  until  next  week,  and  you  know 
I'm  a  sick  woman." 

I  squirted  the  hose  and  dusted. 
Scrubbery  is  one  of  my  short  talents. 
When  the  sun  dried  it  off,  the  porch 
was  streaked  from  end  to  end,  and  I 
had  to  do  it  over  with  my  wife  super- 
vising. 

"It  is  so  sweet  for  us  to  be  together 
in  our  nice  new  home,"  she  said,  as  I 
dutifully  toted  dishes  to  the  kitchen. 
"You  wipe  while  I  wash  them,  and 
then  you  can  take  a  hammer  and  some 
tacks  and  fix  these  old  chairs  for  the 
108 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

kitchen.  When  you  get  that  done  you 
can  put  up  some  shelves  for  me  in  the 
fruit  pantry,  and  why  don't  you  ar- 
range your  books  to-day?  They're 
in  all  sorts  of  places.  There  are  lots 
of  sticks  and  stones  around  the  yard. 
Suppose  you  pick  them  up  and  mow 
the  lawn.  Oh,  I  know  what  you  can 
do!  You  can  level  up  all  these  little 
gullies  where  the  rain  has  cut  up  the 
loose  dirt  in  the  back  yard.  Isn't 
it  just  too  dear  for  anything  for  us 
to  have  a  whole  week  of  fun  fixing 
up  around  the  house?  I  think  after 
you  get  through  with  the  yard  you 

can " 

And  so  on  and  so  on,  to  the  end  of 
the  chapter ! 

109 


THAT   HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

Some  people  think  cleaning  up 
around  a  new  house  is  pie  for  papa, 
but  it  isn't.  There  is  none  of  that 
glamour  you  read  about  in  "The  De- 
lights of  Home"  articles,  and  it  isn't 
a  thing  on  earth  but  a  case  of  chuck 
the  cuffs  and  collars  and  yield  your 
soul  to  perspiration  and  persistence. 

First,  when  you  start  to  follow  the 
carpenter  into  nooks  and  corners  of 
the  cellar  and  little  hiding  places  in 
the  top  floor,  you  find  that  he  has  in- 
vented innumerable  kinds  of  leav- 
ings, deftly  tucked  here  and  there 
where  nobody  but  a  second-sight  man 
would  ever  figure  on  locating  them. 
You  begin  to  pick  up  and  after  you've 
stooped  about  two  thousand  times  you 
no 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

remember  the  picture  in  the  liver 
medicine  ad.,  where  the  man  stands 
with  his  hands  on  the  small  of  his 
back,  looking  unhappy  and  pessimis- 
tic. 

And  it  isn't  only  picking  up,  but  it's 
cleaning  out.  What  to  do  with  the 
stuff  bothers  you.  It's  a  cinch  to  burn 
the  shavings  and  little  pieces  of  wood 
and  that  kind  of  material,  but  you've 
got  to  deal  again  with  bits  of  putty 
and  glass  and  bent  nails  and  tacks 
and  other  unburnable  debris,  and  you 
hate  to  throw  them  into  the  bathtub 
because  of  the  plumbing.  You  finally 
throw  them  out  the  window. 

Later  you  realize  that  you  threw 
them  out  unwisely.  That's  when  you 
in 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

start  to  work  on  your  lawn  and  side 
yard,  and  every  time  you  stick  in  the 
trowel  where  you  are  setting  out 
plants  you  fetch  up  a  quart  of  junk. 
The  astonishing  lot  of  garbage  they 
used  to  make  the  ground  you  stand 
on  is  bad  enough,  but  with  the  things 
you've  thrown  out  added  to  it  the 
situation  is  exasperating. 

You  run  your  lawn  mower  over  a 
nail,  pick  it  up,  and  then  wonder  why 
providence  ever  let  you  get  away 
from  an  early  death,  for  sheer  im- 
becility. It  was  the  nail  you  picked 
up  in  the  third  floor  and  didn't  know 
how  to  dispose  of  it.  Pulling  up  a 
little  bit  of  ground  with  your  hands, 
to  make  a  place  for  some  dwarf  nas- 
112 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

turtium,  you  cut  your  finger  with  the 
piece  of  glass  you  threw  out  the  side 
window.  It's  vexing.  What  to  do 
with  this  wreckage  a  second  time  puz- 
zles you,  and  you  finally  throw  it  over 
into  the  next  lot.  That's  the  time  you 
find  that  your  neighbor  was  watching 
you  from  his  windows,  and — it's  not 
easy  to  be  nice  to  people  who 
throw  their  refuse  over  the  lot  line, 
is  it? 

But  the  worst  of  all  this  cleaning- 
up  business  is  that  your  wife  bosses 
the  job. 

Somehow  or  other,  the  man  who 
loves  his  wife  still  draws  the  line  at 
matrimonial  dictatorship,  even  in  so 
small  a  thing  as  picking  up  after  the 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

carpenter.  Neither  you  nor  your  wife 
intended  to  let  it  go  that  far,  and  she 
really  doesn't  intend  to  go  home  to 
her  mother,  nor  do  you  really  intend 
to  drown  your  domestic  griefs  in 
drink.  But  with  some  provocations 
man  gets  peevish  and  woman  irrita- 
ble. 

The  night  before  it  had  rained. 
Our  back  yard  was  soaked  to  the 
marrow,  if  a  yard  has  a  marrow.  We 
had  a  wire  stretched  to  mark  our  lot 
line  and  keep  people  off  the  grass 
seed  and  the  garden.  On  the  heels  of 
the  rain  came  one  of  the  company 
drivers,  took  down  the  wire  with  de- 
liberation and  criminal  purpose,  and 
drove  two  goldarned  mules  and  a 
114 


THAT   HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

wagon  right  through  that  yard,  cut- 
ting ruts  six  inches  deep  and  scat- 
tering parsnips,  parsley,  beans,  peas, 
and  lettuce  all  over  the  place.  In  a 
new  development  you  have  to  stay  at 
home  twenty-four  hours  a  day  and 
yell  at  such  people,  or  they'll  have 
you  rutted  out  of  your  possession. 

It  was  pitiful  to  see  those  great 
ruts  when  we  had  worked  so  hard, 
and  the  torn-up  garden  with  its 
sprouts  here  and  there  showing  what 
it  might  have  been.  But  it  was  more 
pitiful  to  see  me  walking  around  with 
a  pocketful  of  manslaughter,  looking 
for  the  driver  who  did  it.  Every 
driver  on  the  place  admitted  that  he 
didn't  do  it;  so  I  came  to  the 

"5 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

conclusion  that  it  couldn't  have 
been  done  at  all.  I  was  having  delu- 
sions. The  ruts  and  ruined  gardens 
were  figments  of  a  disordered  imagi- 
nation. 

Oh,  well,  what's  the  use? 

I  got  the  rake,  shovel,  spade,  hoe, 
hand  cultivator,  lawn  mower,  trowel, 
and  a  couple  of  things  you  lift  young 
plants  with  and  assembled  myself  on 
the  lawn  to  put  in  a  good  day's  work. 
With  the  rake  I  started  to  rake  off 
the  side  yard,  and  got  about  halfway 
through  when  I  discovered  that  the 
lawn  needed  mowing.  Halfway 
through  with  the  mowing  job  my  eye 
spotted  certain  thick  spots  of  weeds, 
and  so  I  started  weeding.  Halfway 
116 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

through  with  that  I  stopped  to  pick  up 
sticks  and  stones  and  throw  them,  as 
usual,  over  my  neighbor's  lot.  Then 
it  was  this  thing  and  that  thing,  never 
finishing  anything,  until  finally  I 
chucked  all  things  and  started  some- 
thing new. 

That's  the  way  with  enthusiasts. 
For  finishing  a  job,  give  me  the  plod- 
der whose  imagination  is  subordinate 
to  his  hoe.  You  see,  he  is  a  one-idea 
man,  and  the  idea  may  not  be  his 
own;  but  the  fellow  with  the  genius 
for  starting  things  is  very  seldom 
there  at  the  finish.  He  dreams  large 
and  turns  the  details  over  to  more 
successful  men. 

This  new  thing  I  started  concerns 
117 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

the  front  plot  of  garden  around  the 
porch.  It  was  a  disorganized  thing  as 
it  stood.  I  cut  out  a  ditch  in  front  of 
it,  piled  all  the  dirt  back  against 
the  house  and  toted  baskets  of  hard 
stones  from  a  neighboring  lot.  These 
I  leaned  against  the  sides  of  the  ditch 
and  hammered  them  in,  or  cut  out 
the  earth  and  set,  making  a  stone  wall 
that  would  retain  the  earth,  hold  a 
certain  amount  of  water  for  irriga- 
tion and  at  the  same  time  be  orna- 
mental. It  took  two  hours  to  make  as 
many  yards  of  this  stuff,  and  sev- 
eral friends  called  attention  to  the 
trouble  I  was  taking  for  no  necessary 
purpose.  Well,  that  may  be  so — and 
probably  is — but  it  is  so  stupid  to  be 
1x8 


TEAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

always  doing  the  necessary  things, 
living  on  the  obvious,  plugging  along 
on  the  course  of  existence  that  is  com- 
mon to  all. 


119 


NINTH  PERIOD 

By  the  time  I  had  worn  my  finger 
nails  to  a  state  of  complete  dishabille 
— happy  thought ! — and  had  become  a 
hopeless  problem  for  the  most  san- 
guine manicurist,  I  began  to  learn 
things  really.  For  instance,  this  is 
how  a  lawn  ought  to  be  made: 

First,  grade  your  ground,  then  re- 
move all  stones  and  stumps ;  next  roll 
it  and  then  put  on  a  couple  of  inches 
of  top  soil;  then  roll  that  until  there 
isn't  a  bump  in  it,  sow  your  grass 
seed  and  water  constantly,  prayerful- 
ly. In  making  our  lawn  those  are  the 
things  they  didn't  do. 
1 20 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

I  don't  dare  rake  our  lawn,  because 
the  minute  I  start,  out  will  come  a  lot 
of  holders,  leaving  terrific  yawns  in 
the  sod.  I'm  sure  the  Duke  will  for- 
give me  for  getting  peeved  about  that 
lawn,  when  he  understands  that  there 
are  callouses  in  my  hands  and  knots 
in  my  lawn  mower.  Also,  why  on 
earth,  after  throwing  on  the  grass 
seed,  do  the  men  drive  wagons  over  it 
and  make  ruts  and  jam  their  heels 
into  it  and  make  holes,  where  my 
vagrant  sprinklings  with  the  hose  cre- 
ate lakes  and  puddles  and  produce 
never  a  single  grass  ? 

With  a  little  preliminary  exercise, 
pushing  the  big  road-roller  on  Garri- 
son avenue  and  shoving  marble  blocks 

121 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

out  of  the  Courthouse,  I  tackled  our 
lawn  with  a  new  mower,  put  together 
by  myself  in  accordance  with  instruc- 
tions. Our  lawn  mower  is  painted  a 
beautiful  green  on  the  blades,  to  keep 
out  the  rust.  Also,  it  was  never  in- 
tended to  cut.  It  would  never  do,  in 
an  emergency,  to  shave  with. 

Musically,  our  lawn  mower  for  the 
first  ten  feet  sang  to  my  soul  a  song 
of  sweet,  rural  peace  and  content- 
ment. 

Then  it  struck  a  snag  and  changed 
the  tune. 

In  the  course  of  two  dashes  I  dis- 
covered that  the  spectacle  of  a  bald- 
headed  front-yard  farmer  trotting  up 
and  down  behind  a  lawn  mower  was 
122 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

a  thing  to  make  acquaintance  with. 
Two  men  I'd  never  seen  in  my  life 
stopped  and  gazed  at  me,  and  one  of 
them  asked  me  if  I  was  mowing  my 
lawn.  A  little  girl  came  by  and  stood 
cross-legged  with  her  finger  in  her 
mouth,  and,  when  I  looked  her  way, 
snickered  and  ran  home  to  tell  her 
mother  what  a  strange  sight  she  had 
seen.  Our  grocer  lingered  to  remark 
that  it  was  a  hot  afternoon,  and  as  if 
in  confirmation  of  his  remarkable 
perspicuity  a  lake  of  sweat  fell  like  a 
cloudburst  from  my  brow  and 
drowned  a  hill  of  ants. 

"Don't  work   so  hard,"   said  my 
wife,  as  I  made  another  turn.    "Why 
don't  you  take  it  easy?" 
123 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT. 

"I  am  taking  it  easy,"  I  replied. 
"All  I  need  now  is  a  leather  chair 
and  a  highball  to  look  like  the  Mary- 
land Club  in  repose!" 

Sarcasm  is  one  of  my  strong  points, 
and  my  wife  realized  that  she  had 
goaded  me  into  sharp  retort,  so  she 
giggled  at  me  and  ran  to  the  tele- 
phone to  tell  her  mother  that  Henry 
was  perfectly  crazy  about  his  new 
lawn  mower  and  couldn't  leave  it 
alone  for  a  minute. 

With  all  those  people  looking  on 
and  my  lawn  mower  hitting  a  rock  or 
a  hole  every  seven  revolutions,  I  felt 
cheap.  I  felt  as  though  it  might  have 
been  myself  whose  jawbone  was 
broken  by  Samson,  or  who  bore 
124 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

Balaam  to  Jerusalem.  The  crowd 
kept  growing,  and  a  stream  of  hon- 
est toil  rolled  down  my  spine.  Some- 
how or  other  I  finished  the  job.  Then 
I  looked  at  the  crowd.  I  left  the  lawn 
mower  and  walked  over  to  them  with 
a  deadly  glare  in  my  eye. 

"Any  of  you  fellows  want  to 
fight  ?"  I  demanded  rudely. 

Nobody  replied. 

"Because  if  you  do,"  I  said,  "I  can 
tie  both  hands  behind  me  and  lick  any 
six  of  you  right  now." 

The  crowd  melted  away  slowly. 
One  man  did  stay  a  moment,  but  he 
didn't  want  to  fight.  He  offered  to 
feel  my  pulse. 

In  spite  of  his  sarcasm,  and  in  the 
125 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

face  of  all  criticism,  I  insist  that  I 
was  beginning  to  learn.  For  instance, 
shall  I  tell  you  of  the  time  I  aston- 
ished Campbell? 

Campbell  was  raised  in  the  country. 
The  smell  of  sod  is  strong  in  his  nos- 
trils, and  he  is  a  handy  man  with  a 
hoe.  Campbell  is  an  agent  for  the 
Duke,  but  time  hangs  on  his  hands  at 
moments  and  he  dropped  around  in  a 
casual  sort  of  way  to  look  at  our  back 
yard. 

"I'm  thinking  of  planting  a  turnip 
and  some  onions,"  said  my  wife  pleas- 
antly. 

Campbell  smiled. 

"In  that  soil,"  he  said,  "you'll  never 
make  them  completely  happy.  They'll 
126 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

be  crying  for  home  all  the  time." 

"What's  the  matter  with  the  soil?" 
demanded  my  wife. 

"Well,  it  wasn't  built  for  farming. 
You  always  have  to  put  in  richer  soil. 
I'll  show  you." 

My  wife  thinks  Campbell  is  just 
about  right.  When  he  began  to  talk 
about  how  he'd  enjoy  fixing  her  gar- 
den, and  would  she  please  let  him 
have  the  hoe,  rake,  spade,  and  a 
bucket  to  tote  sod  from  a  pile  in  the 
front  yard,  she  began  to  look  upon 
him  as  a  Dispensation  of  Providence. 
Agriculturally,  I  dwindled  in  impor- 
tance as  he  expanded. 

He  cut  five  rows,  or  furrows,  or 
ditches,  or  whatever  you  call  them, 
127 


TEAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

with  the  hoe,  and  into  them  he 
dropped  peas,  beans,  onions,  parsley, 
and  parsnips.  Then  he  brought 
buckets  of  top  soil  and  dumped  it  on 
the  seeds  along  the  line,  and  raked  the 
soil  over  until  it  was  smooth,  and 
stuck  the  empty  envelopes  at  the  end 
of  the  rows  for  fear  my  wife  would 
get  the  peas  identified  as  corn,  the 
beans  as  peanuts,  the  onions  as  cauli- 
flower, the  parsley  as  rhubarb,  the 
parsnips  as  turnips.  Campbell  let 
me  bring  some  more  buckets  of  soil. 
For  that  favor  I  have  begun  to 
question  the  degree  of  Campbell's 
kindness. 

Then  I  spoke. 

"Your  rows  of  top  soil  will  start 
128 


THAT   HOUSE   I   BOUGHT 

the  seeds,"  I  said,  "but  never  main- 
tain them  when  they're  out.  We  must 
get  some  commercial  fertilizer,  and 
the  minute  the  sprouts  show,  sprin- 
kle it  along  the  sides  of  the  furrows. 
Then  we  must  soak  the  farm  with  a 
hose." 

My  wife  sneered.  "He's  right," 
said  Campbell.  My  wife  winked  at 
him  to  carry  on  the  joke,  but  he  in- 
sisted in  sign  language  that  I  really 
had  the  proper  dope.  She  wilted. 

"Now,"  I  said,  "we'll  have  William 
throw  five  loads  of  top  soil  into  this 
next  patch,  over  which  we  will  run 
a  plough,  mixing  it  not  less  than  a 
foot  deep.  Then  we'll  cover  it  down, 
roll  it  and  soak  it  for  a  week.  We  will 
129 


THAT   HOUSE  1  BOUGHT 

then  be  ready  to  plant  our  tomato 
vines  and  more  onions,  along  the  rows 
of  which  we'll  sprinkle  our  fertilizer 
about  two  sacks  to  ten  yards.  This 
temporary  work  you've  done  is  about 
as  practical  as  a  school  of  journalism 
or  poetry.  We'll  let  it  stand  as  a  hor- 
rible example,  but  all  this  goes  un- 
der, too,  in  the  fall.  Then  we'll  dig 
trenches  around  the  yard,  a  foot  deep, 
fill  in  solid  with  top  soil  and  after  a 
week  of  settling  plant  a  double  row 
of  hedge,  one  foot  apart  in  length  and 
six  inches  apart  in  width.  Am  I 
right?" 

I  had  her  gasping.    She  stared  at 
me  in  wonder,  and  Campbell — well, 
he  just  stood  with  his  mouth  open  like 
130 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

a  catfish,  admiring  and  astounded. 
That  day  when  a  man  becomes  a 
hero  in  his  wife's  eyes  is  a  triumph 
such  as  Napoleon  never  knew  in  his 
greatest  moments,  and  the  feel  of  it 
outdoes  the  joy  of  a  Nero  in  the 
plaudits  of  the  claque.  It  isn't  nec- 
essary to  mention  that  I  got  it  out  of 
a  bulletin  from  the  agricultural  de- 
partment. 


TENTH  PERIOD 

Getting  acquainted  is  part  and  par- 
cel of  buying  a  house.  There  is  some- 
thing in  the  human  chest  that  yearns 
for  speaking  terms,  at  least  with  the 
fellow  who  is  liable  to  lend  you  his 
lawn  mower  or  by  whose  wife  you 
may  some  day  be  called  upon  for 
emergency  aid  in  the  culinary  de- 
partment. 

Our  good  friends  came  out,  it's 
true,  and  last  night  Kittie  and  Lucy 
Eugenie  sat  on  the  porch,  and  after- 
ward had  iced  tea  and  peanut  sand- 
wiches in  the  kitchen,  but  I  mean  the 
132 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

regular  acquaintance  of  the  long  day 
that  makes  the  wife  forget  distances 
and  isolation. 

Whooping  cough  was  our  visiting 
card. 

I  got  acquainted  with  the  nearest 
neighbor  through  the  courtesy  of  his 
advice  when  I  made  some  fool  remark 
about  the  nature  of  the  ground  for 
light  gardening,  and  he  gave  me  the 
benefit  of  his  information  to  the  con- 
trary. We  knew  one  family  so  inti- 
mately that  we  could  almost  nod  as 
we  passed  without  fear  of  being 
snubbed — but  not  a  soul  called,  in- 
quired, or  seemed  to  care.  It  was  the 
busy  time,  and  we  didn't  mind  so 
much  then.  When  things  lightened 

133 


THAT   HOUSE  1   BOUGHT 

up  on  the  labor  end  we  would  begin  to 
notice  it. 

And  then  we  brought  Lydie  out  for 
the  air.  Poor  little  thing!  She 
whooped  and  whooped  and  whooped. 
In  the  middle  of  the  night  she 
whooped,  and  she  whooped  in  the 
morning.  She  would  stop  doing  al- 
most anything  else  to  run  to  her 
auntie  and  whoop.  She  knew  her  re- 
sponsibility. In  the  city  she  had  gone 
from  door  to  door  ringing  bells  and 
gravely  informing  the  occupants  that 
their  children  mustn't  play  with  her, 
because  it  was  catching.  She  ran  her 
quarantine  strictly,  but,  of  course,  our 
new  community  sharers  didn't  know 
that. 

134 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

The  groceryman,  milkman,  iceman, 
paper  boy,  the  plumber,  carpenter, 
stableman — all  manner  of  men  who 
circulate — learned  that  Lydie  had  the 
whooping  cough.  It  wasn't  long  be- 
fore our  neighbors  began  to  take  no- 
tice— I  mean  our  neighbors  several 
houses  removed,  and  across  the  street. 
We  already  knew  our  nearest  neigh- 
bors, and  their  stout  little  red-haired 
heir  and  the  little  baby  that  sang  mis- 
erere in  the  stilly  night.  But  the 
niece  with  the  whooping  cough  made 
us  talked  about  and  observed.  One 
day  a  little  girl  ran  up  to  Lydie. 

"My  mamma  says  I  can  play  with 
you,  'cause  I've  had  the  whooping 
cough !" 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

Lydie  promptly  produced  her  jump- 
ing rope.  And  then  there  was  an- 
other from  the  same  house,  and  we 
discovered,  to  our  joy,  that  the  chil- 
dren of  the  horny-handed  city  editor 
had  also  had  the  whooping  cough. 
We  didn't  need  an  introduction  there, 
but  the  play  privilege  was  pie  for  the 
baby.  First  thing  I  knew  baby  was 
on  this  porch  and  that  porch,  and  on 
the  way  home  in  the  evening  I  whis- 
tled for  her  and  nodded  to  the  grown- 
ups who  were  entertaining  her. 

But  we've  lost  our  intermediary. 
The  other  night  baby  whooped  and  I 
whooped.  Mine  was  nervous  indiges- 
tion, combined  with  a  lot  of  imagina- 
tion that  makes  the  patent  medicine 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

business  profitable.  Between  us,  baby 
and  I  kept  up  a  merry  circus  all  night. 
She  was  really  sick,  and  we  sent  her 
home  to  her  mother. 

What  a  wonderful  thing  it  is  to 
have  a  baby  in  the  house ! 

Every  morning  Catherine  and 
Eleanor  go  out  and  pick  buttercups 
and  forget-me-nots,  and  bring  them 
to  my  wife;  and  she  puts  them  in  a 
vase  with  the  greatest  show  of  grati- 
tude you  ever  saw,  and  then  proceeds 
to  stuff  the  children  with  cakes  until 
they  choke,  and  sends  them  home 
full. 

Every  day  the  little  auburn-haired 
boy  king  in  the  House  Next  Door 
trots  out  with  his  tiny  red  wagon  and 

137 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

laboriously  drags  that  treasure  of 
childhood  up  and  down  the  pavement 
— sometimes  prancing  like  a  race 
horse,  sometimes  plodding  along  like 
a  mule  that  curses  his  ancestry,  some- 
times ambling  by  like  a  good-natured 
family  horse,  guaranteed  not  to  run 
away  or  scare  at  an  automobile ! 

And  the  little  one — the  baby  in  the 
go-cart.  What  a  time  the  baby  has 
watching  Big  Brother,  and  admiring 
his  strength  as  he  performs  miracles, 
not  only  pulling  and  backing  the  tiny 
red  wagon  all  by  himself,  but  actually 
turning  it  around  and  running  the 
other  way,  without  so  much  as  get- 
ting caught  in  the  cracks  or  stuck  in 
the  sod!  You  can  see  admiration 

138 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

fairly  oozing  from  baby's  eyes;  and 
when  he  runs  at  her  and  pretends  to 
kick  his  heels  into  the  dashboard, 
what  a  laugh  she  has ! 

Up  the  street,  where  the  apart- 
ments are  with  the  shiny  sets  of  bells 
on  the  front  by  the  door,  and  the  big 
rocking  chairs  and  air  of  solid  com- 
fort, there  are  some  other  children, 
but  I  haven't  learned  their  names. 
They  play  around  the  porch  and  front 
yard,  and  run  across  the  street,  scam- 
pering up  the  hill  to  pick  flowers  from 
the  lots  that  soon  will  feel  the  plow; 
and  their  mothers  keep  an  eye  on 
them — not  that  any  accident  could 
happen,  for  vehicles  are  scarce  out 
our  way  and  the  street  car  doesn't 

139 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

enter  the  quiet  of  our  lives;  but  just 
because — well,  mothers  are  a  bit  pe- 
culiar that  way — I  mean  that  way  of 
keeping  an  eye  on  the  young  ones. 

A  fellow  never  knows  what  a  re- 
markable head  a  child  has,  if  he  has 
none  of  his  own,  until  he  begins  bor- 
rowing babies  from  the  neighbors. 

There's  Catherine,  for  instance. 
Catherine  and  Eleanor  and  I  were 
looking  for  the  little  pale  anemones 
that  hide  around  the  roots  of  trees.  I 
picked  some  four-petaled  blue  flowers 
and  instructed  the  children. 

"These,"  I  said,  "are  forget-me- 
nots." 

"No,  they're  not/'  said  Catherine 
promptly.    "They  are  bluettes.    For- 
140 


THAT   HOUSE  I   BOUGHT 

get-me-nots  have  five  petals  and  these 
have  only  four." 

"Oh!"  I  said;  "and  where  did  you 
learn  that?" 

"My  teacher  told  me,  and  she  told 
me "  which  ran  into  a  long  lec- 
ture on  botany  and  horticulture  and 
forest-lore  and  things  that  made  me 
ashamed,  for,  frankly,  I  didn't  know 
whether  the  tree  that  shaded  us  was 
an  oak  or  a  maple.  I  think  there 
should  be  a  limit  on  male  suffrage, 
and  woman  domination,  and  child 
education.  There  are  some  things 
that  make  the  average  man  feel 
cheap,  if  he  has  pride. 

But  this  is  all  about  the  babies, 
and  about  the  House  only  indirectly. 
141 


THAT   HOUSE   I   BOUGHT 

We  love  children,  my  wife  and  I,  and, 
perhaps,  we  love  them  the  more  be- 
cause we  can  send  them  back  to  where 
we  borrowed  them  when  they  become 
troublesome.  But  the  most  wonder- 
ful thing  about  babies  to  me  is  that 
not  so  long  ago  we  were  all,  you  and 
I  and  your  neighbor,  all  helpless,  goo- 
ing,  crowing,  dimpling,  fat  or  slim 
kids,  bundled  up  in  carriages  and 
looking  wonder-eyed  at  the  great  pic- 
ture life  unfolded  before  us.  And 
these  babies  around  us — some  of  these 
days  they'll  be  the  men  and  women, 
and  some  of  them  will  borrow  babies, 
and  some  will  cuddle  their  own. 

The  babies,  God  bless  'em! — and 
the  flowers !    They  are  very  alike. 
142 


ELEVENTH  PERIOD 

When  the  house  was  put  in  order 
we  invited  our  professional  associates 
jointly — the  city  editor  and  myself 
and  our  wives — to  come  out  and  see 
us.  It  was  not  a  dress  affair.  It  was 
a  case  of  pajamas  preferred  and 
boiled  shirts  common,  out  under  the 
hot  sun  in  the  flat,  or  lolling  under 
the  oaks  in  the  grove,  where  we  had 
hard  benches  to  make  our  guests  ap- 
preciate upholstery,  There  were  fifty 
guests,  boys  and  girls  of  all  ages,  and, 
Lord,  what  a  time  we  had !  Not  that 
it  beat  a  Hibernian  picnic,  because  it 

143 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

didn't;  but  in  the  pride  of  your  first 
possession,  to  have  your  daily  asso- 
ciates come  out  and  look  you  over 
and  help  you  enjoy  it  makes  owning 
a  house  really  worth  while. 

What  with  getting  ready  and  get- 
ting over  it,  catching  up  sleep  and 
massaging  aching  muscles,  that  event 
stands  as  epochal  in  the  history  of 
our  family.  For  days  the  wives  wor- 
ried each  other  to  death  about  what 
they'd  have.  First,  one  would  sug- 
gest ham  sandwiches  and  chicken 
salad,  and  the  minute  they  agreed  on 
that  the  other  would  switch  in  soft 
crabs  and  roast  beef.  Whether  to 
drink  coffee,  tea,  or  lemonade,  or  all 
three;  whether  to  have  a  modest 
144 


THAT   HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

modicum  of  malt,  whether  to  make  a 
punch  or  just  let  the  guests  drink 
from  the  air,  like  trees  and  flowers — 
these  were  all  vexing  points,  by  no 
means  to  be  settled  offhand.  And  it 
was  not  only  one  night  that  I  was 
aroused  by  dream-talk  like  this : 

"Really,  I  think  lemonade  would  be 
nicer — and  just  a  few  sandwiches  and 

coffee  and  ice  cream,  and "  The 

dream  trailed  off  into  a  weary  sigh 
that  is  the  closest  approach  a  real 
lady  ever  makes  to  a  snore. 

Well,  it  happened.  They  came  by 
twos  and  threes,  and  I  toted  chairs 
and  camp  stools  from  the  house  the 
three  long  blocks  to  the  grove.  At 
first  we  made  conversation  with  the 

145 


THAT  HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

children — Eleanor  and  Catherine — 
and  then  our  intellectual  dean,  t  ob- 
serving a  Catholic  institution  nearby, 
correctly  surmised  by  its  mansard 
slate  roof  that  it  was  built  before  the 
eighties;  it  was  built  in  '72.  With 
such  mental  diversions  we  killed 
time  until  the  managing  editor  ar- 
rived and  started  a  game  of  duck  on 
the  rock,  at  which  the  city  editor 
skinned  his  shoulder.  We  ran  races, 
and  the  littlest  copy  reader's  legs 
twinkled  with  joy  over  the  rough 
course.  The  girls  jumped  rope  and 
screamed,  and  it  was  altogether  kid- 
dish.  Then  we  ate  ham  and  roast 
beef  sandwiches  and  drank  coffee  and 
cooled  our  aesophagi  with  ice  cream 
146 


THAT  HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

and  cake  chasers.  Our  member  with 
the  porcupine  summit  insisted  upon 
singing,  and  the  stenographer  played 
all  the  popular  things.  We  gathered 
at  the  reservoir,  while  two  of  the  men 
and  the  healthiest  girl  ran  a  mara- 
thon around  that  long  mile,  and  she 
finished  beautifully.  Then  we  sat  on 
the  porch  and  had  our  pictures  taken 
by  flashlight. 

Somebody  burgled  That  House  and 
moved  the  parlor  furniture  and  piano 
into  the  dining-room  and  the  dining- 
room  stuff  into  the  parlor.  A  merry 
wit  tacked  attachments  to  our  houses, 
the  managing  editor  put  an  "Open 
for  Inspection"  sign  on  the  city  edi- 
tor's castle  and  some  one  stuck  a  "For 

147 


THAT  HOUSE   I   BOUGHT 

Rent"  placard  on  ours.  And  then  they 
began  leaving,  by  twos  and  threes, 
and  the  telephone  girl  was  one  of  the 
last  to  go,  lingeringly. 

We  slept  that  night — slept  the  sleep 
of  the  properly  weary.  All  sorts  of 
dreams  romped  through  the  long  still- 
ness and  entertained  us.  The  Duke 
of  Mont  Alto  was  in  one  of  mine,  and 
he  was  telling  me  something  about 
taxes  and  water  rent.  But  before  his 
conversation  got  disagreeable  I  was 
awakened  by  a  racket  on  the  roof. 

There's  a  fool  woodpecker  that 
comes  there  every  morning  at  six 
o'clock  and  tries  to  drill  through  the 
slate.  He's  after  a  nest.  It  must  be 
hard  work.  But  if  he  ever  gets 
148 


THAT   HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

through  I  know  how  he'll  feel.  He 
will  have  hustled  some,  but  it  will 
have  been  worth  while.  Anything  is 
worth  while,  friend,  if  the  goal  is  a 
nest  of  your  own,  where  you  can  have 
your  friends  out  and  nobody  can  tell 
you  to  keep  off  the  grass  or  wipe 
your  feet  on  the  mat — excepting  your 
wife! 

Not  at  all  apropo  of  The  House, 
there's  a  thought  I  want  to  get  out  of 
my  system.  What  a  lot  of  braggarts 
we  men  are,  anyhow — and  what  a 
queer  old  world  it  is !  There  are  two 
classes  of  people  in  the  world — those 
who  are  doing  something  worth  while 
and  those  who  are  trying  to  steal  the 
credit.  A  modest  little  hen  two  or 
149 


THAT   HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

three  doors  away  laid  an  egg,  and  in 
very  few  words  cackled  the  event ;  but 
you  ought  to  have  heard  that  insuf- 
ferable rooster!  The  moment  the 
thing  happened  he  strutted  around 
with  his  chest  out,  yelling  at  the  top 
of  his  voice,  drowning  out  the  whole 
poultry  yard:  "Ur-r-r-r,  Ur-r-r-r, 
Ur-r-r-r!  I'm  the  daddy  of  another 
egg!"  How  much  more  decent  it 
would  have  been  had  he  quietly  stood 
by,  preserving  his  dignity  and  judicial 
calm. 

Now  we'll  get  back  to  the  story. 

I'm  sifting  top  soil  to  make  our 

garden  right,  and  my  wife  is  doing 

wonderful   things   inside   the   house 

with  the  furniture  and  fixings.    Ev- 

150 


THAT   HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

ery  day  she  turns  me  around  three 
times  and  shows  me  something  new — 
something  marvelous  of  her  handi- 
work, immensely  flattering  to  me 
since  it  justifies  my  judgment  in  the 
selection  of  a  helpmeet.  Every  day 
the  business  of  buying  the  house  looks 
more  possible  and  less  of  a  financial 
mountain.  Why,  I  can  even  afford 
to  joke  with  the  Duke,  who  asked  me 
what  I  intended  to  plant  in  our  front 
garden  against  the  porch. 

"I  think,"  I  said,  "I'll  plant  a  nice 
little  row  of  mortgage  vines  and  let 
'em  grow  up  and  crawl  all  over  the 
house.  A  mortgage  vine,  Duke,  has 
flowers  on  it  all  the  year  round,  and 
it's  the  most  homelike  thing  I  know." 


TEAT   HOUSE   I   BOUGHT 

The  Duke  enjoyed  that  immensely 
— but  then  he  can  afford  to  laugh,  be- 
cause he  lives  on  the  other  side  of  the 
road. 


And  now  the  time  has  come  to  end 
this  recital  of  everyday  incidents  in 
the  personal  affairs  of  Yours  Truly — 
a  humble  man  of  no  importance  what- 
ever, who  for  that  reason  may  be  rep- 
resentative of  eighty  per  cent,  of  the 
world's  population. 

In  closing,  here  is  a  thought  that 
sticks  with  me:  If  I  had  started  to 
buy  a  home  when  I  was  married,  that 
home  would  long  ago  have  been  my 
clean-title  property.  If  I  had  started 
to  systematically  bank  or  invest 
152 


TEAT  HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

twenty  per  cent,  of  my  earnings  from 
the  date  of  my  first  cub  job,  I'd  have 
owned  stock  in  the  newspaper  that 
lets  me  live.  If  I  had  to  do  it  all  over 
again — 

Why,  Lord  bless  you,  I'd  do  just  as 
I  have  done!  I'd  live  the  same  sort 
of  life,  be  just  the  same  profligate 
fellow  with  no  care  for  the  morrow, 
go  through  just  the  same  sort  of  trials 
and  troubles  and  throw  them  off  with 
just  the  same  sort  of  optimism.  After 
all,  a  fellow  isn't  capable  of  appreciat- 
ing to  the  full  a  little  possession  until 
he  has  gone  the  route  of  silly  extrava- 
gances and  been  pulled  together  by 
some  sudden  impulse  to  be  a  better 
citizen.  And  listen: 

153 


THAT   HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

Without  the  least  reflection  on  the 
good  qualities  of  other  men,  the  very 
best  citizen  of  any  community  is  the 
man  who  has  married  early  and  pro- 
vided a  nest  of  his  own — who  pays 
taxes  and  contributes  his  share  to  the 
happiness  of  society  at  large — who 
obeys  the  law  and  is  not  ashamed  to 
be  in  love  with  his  own  wife — who 
works  hard  and  plays  hard,  and  who 
goes  fishing. 

Enough  of  That  House  I  Bought. 
Come  out  and  sit  on  our  porch,  and 
if  there  is  anything  in  the  larder  you 
may  sup  with  us. 

THE  END. 
154 


THE  EVEN  DOZENTH, 

WHICH   IS  A 

POSTSCRIPT 

You  might  know  it  was  suggested 
by  a  woman.  No  man  ever  yet  re- 
sorted to  the  postscript. 

My  wife  says  it  ought  to  go  in  aft- 
er everything  else,  like  the  tag  of  a 
play.  I  was  in  favor  of  leaving  the 
thing  in  suspense,  and  annoying  the 
reader — leaving  something  to  tease 
the  imagination.  But  she  said  it 
would  be  cruel. 

The  fact  is,  there  was  a  Parade  of 
Silhouettes  across  the  street  last 

155 


THAT  HOUSE  I  BOUGHT 

night.  There  was  a  Preacher  Sil- 
houette, and  there  were  Best  Man  and 
Maid  of  Honor  Silhouettes,  and  their 
were  Jealous  Sister  Silhouettes — two 
of  them.  There  were  Village  Cut-Up 
Silhouettes  and  Silhouettes  of  Little 
Girls  in  Pink  Ribbons — we  knew  they 
were  pink  because  we  saw  them  going 
in,  stepping  high  to  keep  their  white 
slippers  clean. 

All  the  Silhouettes  gathered  under 
a  floral  Court  of  Honor  hung  to  the 
gas  jet,  and  such  a  screaming  and 
laughing  and  talking  when  it  was 
over,  you  never  heard ! 

"At  last,"  said  my  wife,  "I  shall  see 
that  Man  Silhouette  and  that  Girl  Sil- 
houette in  the  flesh.  I  shall  sit  here 

156 


THAT  HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

until  they  start  for  the  train,  and  then 
rush  across  the  street  and  look  right 
into " 

An  odor  of  something  burning 
came  from  the  kitchen. 

"My  roast!"  screamed  my  wife, 
and  dashed  madly  indoors,  followed 
obediently  by  her  husband. 

After  we  had  rescued  the  roast  we 
returned  to  the  porch. 

A  lot  of  idiots  were  throwing  rice 
and  shoes  and  flowers  up  the  street. 
We  followed  the  line  of  attack  and 

there  was  the  carriage,  being  hauled 
off  by  galloping  horses  to  catch  a 
train  for  Niagara  Falls,  with  a  slip- 
per rattling  out  behind,  and  a 
streamer  bearing  the  legend: 

157 


THAT  HOUSE   I  BOUGHT 

WE  ARE  JUST  MARRIED! 

"And  to  think,"  said  my  wife,  "that 
after  all  my  sisterly  solicitude  I  have 
never  seen  the  bride !" 

"Nor  the  groom,"  I  ventured. 

"Oh,  well,"  she  said,  "he  doesn't 
count — now!" 

And  I  reckon  there  may  be  some- 
thing in  that. 

FINIS. 


158 


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